Isernia (Sèrnia in Isernino dialect) is an Italian town of 21 409 inhabitants, the capital of the province of the same name in Molise. Among the first documented Paleolithic settlements in Europe, in ancient times it was a thriving Samnite city, capital of the Italic League and later a Roman Municipium. In the nineteenth century, after the unification of Italy, it was a place of anti-unitary Bourbon reaction. For the bombing suffered during the Second World War, Isernia was awarded the gold medal for civil valor. The establishment of the province dates back to 1970.
St. Peter's Cathedral
It is the most important church in the city,
the cathedral of the diocese of Isernia-Venafro is dedicated to St.
Peter the Apostle and is located in Piazza Andrea d'Isernia. The
building stands on an ancient Italic pagan temple from the 3rd century
BC. of which the entire podium remained intact from which it is possible
to reconstruct its shape. The temple was a capitol, that is, a temple
dedicated to the Capitoline triad which had the entrance on the opposite
side to the current location. In medieval times, a Greek-Byzantine style
cathedral was built which respected the layout of the previous pagan
temple. In 1349 this building was completely destroyed by an earthquake
and a new building in the modern layout was built. At the beginning of
the 19th century, a new earthquake seriously damaged the church which
was rebuilt in the same location but of larger dimensions and with a
very similar appearance to the current one.
The appearance is due
to the neoclassical restorations ordered by Bishop Gennaro Saladin in
the second half of the 19th century which features the large triangular
travertine tympanum, is supported by two pairs of pillars at the corners
and by four tall Ionic columns on the front. The internal space appears
divided into three naves with pillars decorated with Corinthian
pilasters in polychrome marble. In the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament
there is the ancient Byzantine panel called "Virgo Lucis" (the Madonna
of Light) by Marco Basilio dating back to the 15th century.
The
bell tower of the church, located between the left side of the temple
and the University, was built in 1349 and is crossed by the so-called
Arch of St. Peter. The two entrances of the arch are guarded by four
Roman togated statues, initially headless, known in local culture as
mamozi.
Other churches
The Hermitage of Saints Cosmas and
Damian, like the cathedral, was built on an ancient pagan temple.
Certain news of its construction dates back to the year 1130.
The
church of San Francesco, built in 1222 by San Francesco. Traditionally
also known as the Church of Sant'Antonio, by metonymy from a large
chapel located in it, which houses a highly venerated statue of the
Portuguese saint.
The Church of Santa Chiara, built in 1275.
The
Monastery of Santa Maria delle Monache, built around the year 1000,
hosted the nuns of the Benedictine order. In its rooms there are the
National Museum, the Municipal Library of Isernia and part of the
Paleolithic Museum of Isernia.
The Church of San Giuseppe the Worker,
built in 1993 in the San Lazzaro district, the most populous in the
city.
The Church of San Pietro Celestino, founded in 1623 together
with the adjacent monastery, subsequently destroyed.
The Church of
the Immaculate Conception, home of the Brotherhood of St. Peter.
The
Church of Santa Maria Assunta, a modern building in the new part of the
city.
The Sacred Heart Parish, built in 1948, which includes the
monastery of the Capuchin friars.
Fraternal Fountain
Ranked among the monumental fountains of Italy
for its admirable architectural structure, the Fraterna fountain is one
of the most significant and important works as well as a symbol of the
city.
The fountain, composed of blocks of local stone coming from
an unknown number of buildings in the city and from Roman era buildings,
is mainly made up of a series of round arches. It has several epigraphs
engraved on it, including one dedicated to the Mani Gods. In the center
of the fountain there is a marble slab larger than the others, decorated
with two dolphins and a flower, coming from a sepulchral building. It
can therefore be said that the fountain does not date back to a specific
historical period, but that it is testimony to the numerous historical
periods that have passed through the city.
The source is located
in Piazza Celestino V following the bombings of 1943; previously it was
located in Piazza della Fraterna, from which it took its name.
The Roman Aqueduct of Isernia is an aqueduct of Roman origin dug into
the travertine rocks underground of the city and is functional.
The Cardarelli bridge, formerly the Precie bridge, on the Sordo river
«The Via Nazionale, which crossed the city of Isernia with steep
gradients, was replaced by a new stretch of road which includes the
viaduct called 'La Precie', for the crossing, near Isernia, of the deep
valley from which it takes the name. The artefact has only two levels,
although it measures 57 meters in height, which makes it particularly
bold and singular. It is 130 meters long, of which 92 are between the
shoulders. It is quick to look at and therefore, due to its great size,
it arouses a sense of grandeur and admiration, especially to those who
admire it from the bottom of the valley. Its construction began in April
1887 and ended in April 1892, with a cost of 300,000 lire. 11,000 cubic
meters of masonry were used, including a thousand meters of cut stone.
In order to reduce its weight, between the top of the upper arches and
the road surface there is a longitudinal tunnel of 120 metres, with a
capacity of 1090 cubic metres. This tunnel is lit by windows created
under the arches and is easily accessible. The civil engineering
engineer Gustavo Baliviera gave the pre-existing project its current
form and was in charge of the work"
(News from a late nineteenth
century publication)
Acque Sulfuree: in the Acqua Sulfurea
district, there is a spa dating back to Roman times and which fell into
disuse for a long time. In the plant there is an active sulphurous water
fountain. Following a still partial renovation of the site by the
municipal administration - there was an attempt at an architectural
redevelopment of the place.
Santo Spirito Viaduct: arched viaduct of
the Termoli-Vairano railway on the Carpino river. Destroyed in the
Allied bombings of 1943, it was rebuilt in its current form. It is
supported by two series of arches separated by a large arch that goes
over the Carpino.
Palazzo D'Avalos-Laurelli, built in 1694 by Prince Diego I of Avalos.
Palazzo San Francesco, built in 1222 by San Francesco.
Palazzo De
Lellis-Petrecca, dating back to around the mid-eighteenth century, is a
Vanvitellian work built by Ferdinand II of Bourbon.
Palazzo Jadopi,
dating back to the 18th century, witnessed the hanging of some
Garibaldians.
Palazzo Pecori Veneziale, one of the most beautiful in
the city, was built in the 18th century by the Marquis Pecori.
Palazzo Orlando, located in the new area of the city, is one of the
headquarters of the University of Molise.
Palazzo Pansini-Clemente,
built between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth century on the church of the Annunziata, which was destroyed.
Palazzo dell'Università is another seat of the University of Molise;
built on the old church of San Paolo, it is connected to the cathedral
through the Arch of San Pietro.
Palazzo Viti stands on the current
Corso Garibaldi, at the height of the Villa Comunale. Built at the
beginning of the 20th century (1901), it is characterized by 4 rose
windows on the facade which symbolize the virtues of the family (art -
work - honesty - commerce)
Isernia has never been equipped with a castle, rather with a city
wall still partly identifiable in the ancient centre. The natural
elevation of the town on the hill made Isernia a well-protected city as
early as the 12th century. As regards the previous Roman era, the
elements arrived regarding the masonry, large parallelepiped trachinic
blocks, traces of which are visible on the eastern part. The Roman forum
was the current Piazza Andrea d'Isernia or Piazza del Mercato, where the
cathedral of San Pietro was built over the temple of Jupiter. The
decumanus maximus coincided with the course of the Marcelli course; in
the regular repetition of the alleys orthogonal to it, the only
exception being Vico Storto del Castello, a theory of cardines can be
recognised.
In the medieval Lombard-Norman era, the cathedral of
Isernia, the episcope and the territory around the forum came to
constitute a religious center in the topographically highest part of the
semi-destroyed Roman city; another center of a civil nature was formed,
according to Franco Valente, later in the Lombard age (10th century),
that is, outside the walls to the north, when the County of Isernia was
established, a fortress would have been erected in the southern area,
between via Occidentale and Largo Purgatorio, now disappeared, of which
however the toponyms of via Castello, vico Porta Castello remain.
In 847 an earthquake destroyed Isernia, other damage was caused by
the Normans, so that the county passed into the County of Boiano, or
Molise. In 1223 Emperor Frederick II, fighting against Count Tommaso di
Celano dei Marsi, ordered the demolition of the Isernine walls. So these
slowly in the following centuries came to merge with the civil houses,
thanks to other destruction caused by the earthquakes of 1456 and 1805.
In 1703 the abbot Giovan Battista Pacichelli created a plan of the
city of Isernia as it appeared at the time.
In the legend of the
geographical map, with letters of the alphabet, the main monuments are
shown:
A: Capuchin Convent
B: Sanctuary of Saints Cosmas and
Damian
C: Celestine Monastery (San Pietro Celestino)
D: Monastery
of Santa Maria delle Monache
G: Prince's Palace
I: Bishop's palace
and cathedral bell tower
L: Market Square
M: Church and convent of
Santa Chiara
M: San Rocco suburb
The letters E - F - H - N
indicate missing buildings: the churches of Sant'Onofrio, San Vincenzo,
dell'Annunziata, and Santa Lucia. The eastern wall, although in ruins,
served as a patrol walkway. There are three access arches, the first
from the church of Santa Maria delle Monache, the second at the height
of the cathedral, from the door of the bell tower of San Pietro, and the
third below the church of Santa Chiara, through Porta Fonticella.
Near Piazza Purgatorio, where the church once stood, destroyed in
the bombing of 1943, it seems that a section of the curtain wall is
missing, perhaps having already collapsed in the earthquake of 1805.
There is a recess, a slope with land without buildings. On the southern
side the wall shows a forepart, a circular tower and Porta da Piedi,
with a bridge that spanned a moat; the latter seems to be generated by
the Carpino river. An artificial canal was probably built to protect
access to the walls, at the beginning of Corso Marcelli. The north side
of the walls appears to be characterized by a series of massive
buttresses which suggest the extensive reuse of the remains of the
Samnite walls; The entrance from the north, called Porta Maggiore, which
welcomed merchants and pilgrims from the Abruzzi and Bojano road,
Campobasso, was missing, and the church of the Immaculate Conception was
located there.
Pacichelli's drawing does not provide information
on the western side, opposite to the point of view of the city, a 19th
century plan created by the geographer Tommaso Zampi, kept in the
"Vittorio Emanuele III" National Library of Naples, shows what the wall
plan of this portion, with a curtain-like pattern. Subsequently,
however, in several places the stretch of Via Occidentale was remodeled
due to the presence of homes.
The western front featured three
circular towers, easily identifiable among the houses, and 4 access
gates: Porta Castello, Porta di Giobbe, near Vicolo Castello, and Porta
Mercatello, which still exists, and leads to Piazza Andrea d'Isernia;
then again Porta San Bartolomeo, which was located near the church of
the same name which was subsequently destroyed, the door still exists,
it is located in Largo Ciarlante.
The Meeting (Piazza della Repubblica). In 1998, in Piazza della
Repubblica, a carved stone sculpture by the master Pietro Cascella,
called "The Encounter", was placed. The work represents the soul of
Isernia, founded on a meeting of several paths, and therefore of
different cultures.
Monument to the fallen of the First World War,
located in the Remembrance Park, and created by the master stonemason
Camillo Centuori. The monument is dedicated to the victims of the First
World War; it is made up of six columns with Corinthian capitals, which
support a circular structure on which the names of the victims of the
Great War and the six rivers protagonists of the Italian victory are
carved.
The marble lionesses: in the 16th century in Piazza Andrea
D'Isernia there was a large fountain, of which only four ornamental
marble lionesses remain. Two of these statues were positioned on the
sides of the south entrance of the current municipal villa. The
remaining two lie in the municipal warehouse of the museum (found by
chance by a worker from the same municipality), and have been waiting to
be relocated for at least a decade.
Statue to the victims of the 10th
of September, located in Piazza
Terminal Francesco Martino: The
terminal for urban and extra-urban buses, built in the early 2000s near
the railway station, was named after Francesco Martino, the boy from
Isernia who died in a train accident on the Rome-Campobasso route near
Roccasecca on the 20th December 2005.
Cyclopean Walls: the historic
center of Isernia (i.e. the part of the old Latin colony) was surrounded
by Cyclopean walls (visible only in some places) dating back to the
third century BC. about. The walls surrounded the area of the fortified
citadel, along the route of which circular guard towers were built in
the Middle Ages which are still perfectly visible. The area of the
Cyclopean walls goes from the area of the Church of San Pietro Celestino
and reaches the height of the current Piazza Celestino V where the
Fraternal Fountain is located in front of which remains of the
aforementioned walls were discovered. Other remains were discovered
during the restoration of a room used as a restaurant adjacent to Piazza
Celestino V;
Piazzetta Sant'Angelo: also called Largo Storto
Castello, which is accessed from the alley of the same name. Until 1871
it was called Largo San Giuseppe due to the presence of the church
dedicated to him, destroyed by the earthquake of 1805.
"Isernia-La Pineta" is a Paleolithic archaeological site dating back
to approximately 700,000 years ago and nominated in 2006 for the list of
world heritage sites. It was found by chance by researcher Alberto
Solinas in May 1979, during work on a link road connecting SS 85 and SS
17. The discovery took place in La Pineta, a few hundred meters east of
the current town centre.
The Quadrella Necropolis. Along the roads
leading out of the ancient town centre, several discoveries of funerary
objects have occurred, relating to some Roman necropolises. The most
important discovery was that which occurred in 1980 in the Quadrella
area, of a necropolis dating back to the first centuries AD. The
affected area is located south of the town, where the Sordo and Carpino
join to form the Cavaliere river. The tombs found were of the "ditch"
type, rich in funerary objects which were not very heterogeneous,
indicating a presumed social uniformity among the deceased. Some of the
funerary objects are exhibited in the national museum of Santa Maria
Delle Monache.
The Macerone pass (684 m above sea level), located in the northern
area of the municipality, has been the Apennine pass since Roman times
that connected Isernia with Forlì del Sannio and Castel di Sangro via
the road route of the same name. A section of the route was replaced by
an almost parallel highway, which significantly reduced the travel times
of the Isernia-Rionero Sannitico section. The pass was affected by a
terrible landslide in 2013 which devastated the entire road surface,
revealing layers upon layers of asphalt added over the years to
counteract what was a "perennial landslide". This event brought
considerable inconvenience to the inhabitants of the hamlets: Vandra and
Masserie Lotto in the municipality of Forlì del Sannio. The SS17 sector
was then reopened by ANAS in 2019.
The particular steepness and
tortuosity of the "Macerone" mean that the pass is extremely popular
among cycling enthusiasts and motorbike excursionists.
Memorable
pages of professional cycling have been written on this route: in a
stage of the 1921 Giro d'Italia, the "very champion" Costante
Girardengo, struggling with the kilometers of the "Macerone" - some of
which with gradients of up to 14% - , got off his bicycle and drew a
cross in the dust of the road, whispering in an exhausted voice
"Girardengo stops here!", and then abandoned the race.
The main settlement of Isernia is located on the
wide ridge of an oblong hill of the southern Apennines, which
separates two parallel watercourses of modest flow, the Carpino and
the Sordo. These river basins flow south-west into the Cavaliere
river, a tributary of the Vandra river, in turn a tributary of the
Volturno. The city rises along the Pescasseroli-Candela sheep track
(an ancient transhumance route), at the intersection of the state
road 85 and the state road 17 Appulo-Sannitica, and is surrounded by
the Matese mountains to the south and the Mainarde to the
north-west. Its territory has an altitude that varies from 285 m
above sea level. up to 905 m above sea level, for an average of 457
m above sea level. The area is considered to be at high seismic risk
as the telluric activity in the area is estimated to be very
intense. The northern area of the inhabited center is located at a
higher altitude than the southern part (historically older), and is
located on an almost flat but very humid terrain rich in marshy
springs, including that of the river Sordo.
According to the
Geological Map of Italy drawn up by the Geological Service of Italy,
the territory of the municipality of Isernia is located halfway
between the "Mesozoic limestone-dolomite" formations to the south,
relating to the Campania Apennines and the Matese mountains, and the
" pelagic sediments "of the Mesozoic-Tertiary to the north,
belonging to the Samnite Apennines and the Abruzzese Apennines. The
very extensive overlapping of these two areas constitutes an anomaly
with respect to the rest of the Apennine morphology. The subsoil of
the town is made up of travertine rocks, while in the northern part
of the town there are sandstone and limestone rocks.
On the basis of the 30-year reference average 1961-1990, the average temperature of the coldest month, January, is +5.9 ° C; that of the hottest month, August, is +23.5 ° C.
The origin of the toponym Isernia does not have a certain provenance. One of the main hypotheses is that the name comes from the Indo-European root "ausa", which means "water". This root, in fact, has given rise to many names of places and cities throughout Europe, and in support of this theory there would be the peculiar position of the ancient inhabited center of Isernia, surrounded by three rivers. Further hypotheses foresee that the name comes from the Samnite root Aiser, which means "God". This would give a sacred aura to the name of the city, also increased by the fact that the root Aiser, in the Etruscan language, means "Gods". Both etymologies therefore suggest that the city would have been "consecrated to the gods". Finally, in the Latin name of Isernia, that is Aesernia, or better in the Oscan name Aisernio, the similarity with the toponym Esere is very marked. This name is an epiclesis of Hercules and appears in a ceramic fragment of Oscan origin, found in Campochiaro. Consequently, this origin could indicate that Isernia is a sacred city dedicated to Hercules.