Avezzano (Marsican dialect: Avezzanë) is an Italian town of 41
303 inhabitants in the province of L'Aquila, in the Marsica area, in
Abruzzo.
Raised to the status of a city by decree of the
President of the Republic of 21 June 1994, the urban center is
clearly documented for the first time in the 9th century. It
developed starting with the French administrative reorganization
and, exponentially, towards the end of the 19th century following
the drying up of Lake Fucino.
The city, almost completely
destroyed by the 1915 earthquake, was decorated with the silver
medal for civil merit, having suffered severe damage from
Anglo-American air raids in 1944, a few years after reconstruction,
as well as acts of violence and reprisals. Nazi-fascists. With an
agricultural, as well as industrial and commercial vocation, it
constitutes a geographical road and rail hub in the Apennine area of
Central Italy.
Marsi Cathedral
The mother church of the diocese is dedicated to
San Bartolomeo, patron saint of Avezzano together with the Madonna of
Pietraquaria, proclaimed co-patron in 1978. The cathedral, commissioned
after the 1915 earthquake by bishop Pio Marcello Bagnoli, was designed
by the author of the general municipal master plan , the engineer
Sebastiano Bultrini, however undergoing notable changes. Built in Piazza
Risorgimento and consecrated in 1942, it was damaged two years later by
Allied bombing. With the restoration project, developed first by the
architect Pasquarelli and later by the engineer Giuseppe Mazzocca, the
travertine facade was created in neo-Renaissance style.
Sanctuary
of the Madonna of Pietraquaria
The small original church, probably
dating back to the 13th century, fell into ruin following the
abandonment of the fortified center of Pietraquaria and was rebuilt in
1614 and enlarged during the 19th century. The sanctuary with a Latin
cross base has a single nave and a large apse. Externally it is flanked
by the square-based bell tower and the convent built in 1840 and
subsequently expanded. To the side is the "Domus Mariae" which was
inaugurated in 1957 and entrusted to the Benedictine nuns of charity.
Church of San Giovanni Decollato
Built in the 15th century, it
was originally dedicated to Saint Francis. Almost completely destroyed
by the earthquake of 1915, it was rebuilt in the 1930s based on a design
by the engineer Loreto Orlandi who added the sixteenth-century portal of
the disappeared church of Santa Maria in Vico to the side façade. It
presents varied architectural styles with the interior and facade
characterized by Baroque decorative elements, while the central portal
is of Renaissance construction.
Church of the Sacred Heart in San
Rocco
The original late medieval church, whose façade recalled the
Romanesque style, was located beyond the city walls. After the
earthquake of 1915 it was rebuilt in another area designed by the
architect Giuseppe Zander and named after the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It
was inaugurated in 1958. Externally the lower parts of the facade and
bell tower are covered in travertine and the upper parts with yellow
ceramics and green.
Church of Santa Maria in Vico
Together
with the convent of the Capuchin friars, the 16th century church was
destroyed following the 1915 earthquake together with other religious
buildings such as the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo, the former
monastery of Santa Caterina and the church of San Nicola. The convent
and church were rebuilt starting in the 1920s in a different area of the
rebuilt city.
Sanctuary of the Madonna del Silenzio in San
Francesco
The church of San Francesco was built together with the
convent between 1920 and 1922 in the Frati district. In 1939 the
structures with serious static problems were demolished; the rebuilding
took place in 1971. In 2020 the church was elevated to a diocesan
sanctuary dedicated to the Madonna del Silenzio. A niche houses the
Byzantine-style panel painting created by an unknown artist probably
between the 9th and 10th centuries and saved together with the
eighteenth-century wooden tabernacle from the ruins of the church of
Vico. The wall paintings are the work of Francesco Antonio Bianchi.
Church of San Giuseppe
It was the first sacred building rebuilt
in the city after 1915, serving as a cathedral until the reconstruction
of the church of San Giovanni Decollato and, subsequently, of the new
cathedral of Avezzano. Small in size, it is dedicated to Orthodox
worship.
Church of the Madonna del Passo
Located in the modern
Borgo Pineta district, it was completed in 1959 and flanked by the bell
tower in the seventies. The Latin cross structure has three naves. At
the end of the central nave is the polygonal apse, while the baptismal
fonts are located in the lateral ones.
Justice palace
Designed in 1917 in neoclassical-eclectic style by
the architect Luigi Gallo, the building was inaugurated in 1930 to house
the seat of the court established in 1861. In 1944 the building suffered
serious damage from bombings.
Municipal building
Completed on
15 December 1927 based on a design by Sebastiano Bultrini, it presents
an architectural style inspired by fifteenth-century Tuscan villas. The
council hall is adorned with frescoes created by Ciro Mantegna based on
sketches by the Sicilian painter Ferdinando Stracuzzi, whose lictor
symbols were replaced after the fall of fascism by Francesco Antonio
Bianchi with sheaves of flowers and wheat. The paintings depict the
reclamation of Fucino and the reconstruction of the city after 1915.
Torlonia Palace
Built at the end of the 19th century, it
collapsed almost completely in 1915. The original building had three
floors surmounted by a small bell tower with clock. On the facade of the
palace rebuilt in 1925 by Giovanni and Carlo Torlonia, the sculpture
depicting the coat of arms of the principality of Fucino with the effigy
of the Arabian phoenix on the stake was exhibited around 1927 to
symbolize the rebirth of the territory. The work which was allegedly
stolen by the retreating Germans in 1944 was subsequently replaced. The
rooms on the first floor are decorated with painted ceramic floors from
Vietri sul Mare and frescoes by Vincenzo Alicandri, Francesco Antonio
Bianchi and Pietro Cascella. After the agrarian reform of 1950, the
building housed the administrative offices of the Fucino body and the
regional agency for agricultural development services, before being
managed by the municipality together with the appurtenances of the villa
of the same name.
Bishop's Palace
The bishop's residence,
designed in the 1920s by Sebastiano Bultrini, was inaugurated in 1928.
Behind it is the building that housed the diocesan seminary; the two
structures were built after the diocesan chair was moved from Pescina to
Avezzano. The architectural style is characterized by simple and linear
elements.
Marsi Theatre
Designed in 1971 by architect Furio
Cruciani, it was inaugurated in 2006, after a long planning and
bureaucratic phase. The modern structure has a capacity of approximately
800 seats, a large auditorium, gallery, foyer on two floors and has
technical characteristics suitable for concerts, operas and prose.
Villino Cimarosa
Art Nouveau building located next to the church
of Madonna del Passo. Built outside the concentration camp in 1916 to
house the offices of the military engineers, from 1942 it became the
city headquarters of the SS. Reused as a kindergarten and subsequently
abandoned, it was restricted by the Superintendence.
Avezzano
sugar factory
The abandoned complex is a site of
archaeological-industrial interest. It was built by an Italian-German
company at the end of the 19th century, a few years after the drying up
of the Fucino, and made fully functional in 1903. The parts that
suffered serious damage from the 1915 earthquake and during the Second
World War were rebuilt in a style distinct architectural. Industrial
activity ceased in 1986.
Orsini-Colonna Castle
On the site where the remains of the
square-based watchtower were located, built in 1181 by Gentile di
Palearia and conquered in 1363 by Francesco I del Balzo, the
construction of the castle with an essential style began, with an
internal keep surrounded by walls square at whose corners the
route-breaking turrets stood out. In 1490 it was remodeled in
Renaissance style by request of Gentile Virginio Orsini, with the
probable technical assistance of Francesco di Giorgio Martini. In 1546
the manor was expanded by Marcantonio Colonna with the adaptation to a
fortified palace and the creation of the garden. Severely damaged in
1915 and 1944, it was partially restored to a design by the architect
Alessandro Del Bufalo in 1994.
Incile del Fucino
In the Borgo Incile area at the mouth of the
emissary there is the monumental infrastructure in neoclassical style
completed in 1876 on the occasion of the total drying up of the Fucense
basin, whose architectural design together with that of the garden was
handled by Carlo Nicola Carnevali. The three-arch floodgate bridge is
dominated by the head of the emissary and the approximately seven meter
high statue of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The present statue is
the identical copy of the original one which collapsed in 1915. On the
Virgin's head there is a crown of twelve stars, while other bronze
elements recall the biblical apocalypse. The functioning work, already
built in Roman times, connects the external canal to the underground
emissary served on Mount Salviano by the system of Claudius' tunnels.
Marked by the Marsica earthquake of 1915 and the bombings of the Second
World War, the urban area of Avezzano does not have a large monumental
and artistic heritage. In the center of the city, there is the
sixteenth-century fountain by Marcantonio Colonna and the monument to
the fallen for the Fatherland entitled Glory to the infantryman,
surmounted by the bronze statue depicting Victory, was initially placed
in Piazza Risorgimento and subsequently moved to Piazza Torlonia. The
work, created after the mid-1920s by the neo-Hellenistic sculptor
Ermenegildo Luppi, was inaugurated on 8 February 1931 in the presence of
the minister Pietro Gazzera and the Honorable Carlo Delcroix. The
nineteenth-century circular fountain located in the same square was
designed by the land surveyor Giulio Del Pelo Pardi and built in 1899 by
the stonemason Enrico Santirocco.
On Mount Salviano there is the
memorial created in memory of the victims of the 1915 earthquake and the
First World War, whose obelisk was created in 1965 by the sculptor
Pasquale Di Fabio and the sculpture Teatro della Germination, a 1998
work by Pietro Cascella located in the near the pass.
Collegiate Church of San Bartolomeo
The archaeological excavation
area of the former seventeenth-century collegiate church of San
Bartolomeo is located in the old urban center of Avezzano. Starting from
the early 2000s, collective tombs and the remains of pre-existing
churches dating back to the different imperial, medieval and Renaissance
phases came back to light. The abbot and historian Muzio Febonio, in his
work Historiae Marsorum, asserted that the original church was built on
the remains of a pagan temple, in the Pantano area, between the 9th and
10th centuries.
Claudio's tunnels
To the south of the city, on
the slopes of Mount Salviano, the entrances to the service tunnels of
the underground emissary overlook the Fucense basin. The tunnel,
approximately six kilometers long, has a section varying from 5 to 10
square meters and a height difference of 8.44 metres. The work,
commissioned by Claudius between 41 and 52 AD, served to significantly
reduce the flow of Lake Fucino, removing the risks associated with
floods and unhealthy summer droughts, thus favoring agricultural
activities. The works involved over 25,000 men including slaves and
workers; To simplify the drilling and extraction of the rock material,
thirty-two vertical shafts and six inclined tunnels were dug, partly by
hand. With the fall of the Roman Empire, in the absence of maintenance,
the tunnel became blocked, causing the body of water to return to its
original levels. The project was resumed and expanded approximately
eighteen centuries after its implementation by Alessandro Torlonia who
completed the total drainage and subsequent reclamation. The area is
protected by the archaeological park established in 1977.
Cave of
Ciccio Felice
Located on the slopes of Mount Salviano, it is a site
of archaeological and speleological interest. The first scientific
information disclosed by Pietro Barocelli dates back to 1949, a few
years after the end of the Second World War, during which it was used by
the people of Avezzano as an anti-aircraft shelter. Various hunting
tools and lithic fragments dating back to the Upper Paleolithic and
Eneolithic have emerged from the site, as well as numerous structural
traces from the Iron Age and ceramic materials dating back to the
4th-1st century BC. Not far away is the small Afra cave investigated in
1956.
Roman villa
In the Macerine area, near the state road 5
Via Tiburtina Valeria, the remains of the Roman villa built in the 2nd
century BC have emerged. along the original route of the Via Tiburtina
Valeria. The site, included in the ager publicus of Alba Fucens, has a
rustic and a residential sector. With the excavations that began in
2005, the remains of the baths, dating back to the 2nd-3rd century, the
mosaic floor with figurative motifs, the 5th-6th century tombs and other
finds came to light. The archaeological area was opened to the public in
2008.
Other sites
The necropolis of Cretaro-Brecciara was
discovered during the construction works of the interport. The tombs
date back to the 8th-7th century BC, while other finds belong to the
Republican age. In 2018, three other pit tombs from the 7th century BC,
containing bones and funerary objects, emerged from a sandy bank in the
Colle Sabulo area. On Mount Salviano there are the remains of the
fortified enclosure dating back to the 11th century which belonged to
the Pietraquaria fiefdom which governed part of the surrounding mountain
territory. In 1978, at the Neolithic settlement of Paterno, located on
the Cellitto plain along the primordial route of the Via Tiburtina
Valeria, the lithic statuette of the same name was found, as well as
ceramic pottery. The funerary monuments of Valle Solegara, built in the
imperial era, are located between the southern slope of the Pettorino
hill of Alba Fucens and Antrosano, next to the original Via Valeria; in
the same area traces of tombs dating back to between the 7th and 5th
centuries BC were found. The archaeological site of Alba Fucens, founded
as a colony under Latin law and which became a commercial city, is
located about seven kilometers north of Avezzano; on the hill of San
Pietro there is the Roman amphitheatre, while on one side of the
Pettorino hill there is the cavea of the Albense theatre.
Monte Salviano guided nature reserve
The protected area, already a
peri-urban park since 1993, was officially established in 1999 in an
area of approximately 722 hectares. The Pilgrim's House was built in the
former stone bar, a cultural center where photographs of the local fauna
and flora are exhibited and the herbarium is set up. The route called
Via dei Marsi, included in the European path E1, dates back to pre-Roman
times; another itinerary named after Robert Baden-Powell leads to the
Crocione, a large wooden cross erected in 1902 not far from the
sanctuary of the Madonna di Pietraquaria. Mount Salviano is listed among
the sites of community interest in Abruzzo.
Villa Torlonia
The
rectangular park extends for over three hectares including the historic
building of the same name, the glass palace and the conference room
named after Antonio Picchi, the former granaries, the ice house and the
museum of rural and pastoral civilization. The latter is used between
the park and the Torlonia pavilion, a wooden structure with an octagonal
plan built in 1891. In the garden created by the Torlonia family there
are various types of plants and trees such as acacia, cedar of Lebanon,
Japanese cherry, ginkgo and yew and are some fragments of the stone
capitals of the original statue of the Madonna dell'Incile built in 1876
and collapsed in 1915 are exposed.
Torlonia Square
With a
triangular plan, it is located on a flat area of the urban centre.
Previously called Piazza Aia, it was adapted by Giulio Del Pelo Pardi to
a garden with tree-lined avenues and box hedges. In the center of the
square is the monumental fountain donated by Anna Maria Torlonia and
Giulio Borghese in 1899, following the construction of the first city
aqueduct. The bronze bust depicting Prince Alessandro Torlonia, created
after his death, and the monument to those fallen for the country are
placed laterally.
Pine forest
It was planted during the
fascist period with the primary aim of protecting the area from the
freezing winter winds coming from the Velino massif. It is located north
of the contemporary neighborhood of Borgo Pineta, in the Tre Conche
area, near the site of the former concentration camp. The vegetation of
the pine forest consists of medium and tall black pines.
La
Pulcina peri-urban park
Green area located in the north of the city.
In 2019, a 1,900 square meter municipal theme park called Dinopark was
created which houses life-size reproductions of some animatronic
dinosaurs. The equipped dog walking area was inaugurated in 2023.
The city, lying on the northwestern edge of the
Fucino basin, is dominated to the north by Mount Velino, bordering
the hill of Albe, and to the west by Mount Salviano, beyond which
the hamlet of Cese dei Marsi rises on the edge of the Palentini
plains. To the east of the municipal territory, the town of Paterno
marks the border with Celano, while to the south it falls into a
portion of the Fucense plain. The urban sector has an altitude
ranging from 670 m s.l.m. of the area adjacent to the Orsini-Colonna
castle at 740 m of the modern northern area.
The difference
in height varies from 652 m a.s.l. del Fucino at 1398 m of the
mountain group of the Tre Monti di Paterno; the land on which the
city rests is slightly sloping with a north-northwestern ascent.
Avezzano is located in the center of the Marsica, a
historical-geographical region of Abruzzo that includes 37
municipalities, for a total of over 130,000 inhabitants.
The Fucense area is crossed by a series of canals created after the drying and reclamation of the lake. The central collector collects the water that flows from the Giovenco and the surrounding streams into the network of canals and is used mainly for irrigation purposes. Some springs, all of small flow, flow along the slopes of Mount Velino and the Tre Monti di Paterno. The Palentini plains are partly crossed by the Imele which joining the Ràfia stream north of Cese gives rise to the Salto river. In addition to the Incile del Fucino, the wetlands, characterized by the presence of small lakes, are found in the localities of Pozzone and Papacqua.
The reliefs that
surround the city to the north-northwest, which are part of the
mountain groups of Magnola-Velino and Monte Salviano, are
characterized by traces of Pleistocene-Holocene glacialism due to
their geological nature of the limestone-dolomitic type. Debris
covers can be seen on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The
mountain walls, along the northeastern fuchense route up to Venere
dei Marsi, are marked by the Meso-Cenozoic carbonate succession.
In the Avezzano area, the edges of the Fucino plain have
gravelly-sandy fluvial deposits, silts and clays. The sediments can
be dated at least to the period of the last glaciation. On both
sides of Mount Salviano and Mount Cervaro there are karst
phenomenologies such as small caves or rocky shelters.
Due to its latitudinal position, close to the western
sector of the central Apennines near the Sub-Apennines, Avezzano is
characterized by a continental climate with cold and rainy winters
and hot summers. The bad weather of the Atlantic origin from the
Tyrrhenian basin also records snowfall in the winter period with
temperatures that in some cases can reach -30 ° C when the area is
affected by cold outbreaks of a continental arctic matrix from the
Balkan sectors. Its geographical position, on the edge of the
fucense basin, favors thermal inversion especially in autumn, winter
and spring, with the formation of fog and a high level of humidity.
Summers are generally torrid but also characterized by stormy phases
with a temporary increase in air humidity.
Below is the
summary table of the main data of the local meteorological station
in operation since 1926.