Civitella Casanova - History

History

There is no received sources to flesh out an exhaustive and widely documentassero the history of this town as a result of German occupation during the years of the Second World War the Palace Jandelli and the municipal building, which at that time was not in today's home Palazzo Pulsoni in Corso Umberto I, but in a building on Via Vico Schools, close to Palazzo Pignatelli. This, however, can boast a historic and glorious existence, made known by the few surviving sources and documents, to which add the testimony of the inhabitants of the place, sometimes considered by university professors for special studies have revealed valuable information, later disclosed. In San Benedetto Roman remains have been found and came to light a stretch of underground aqueduct along with floors of homes and cemeteries. In ancient times the village was called Cutina, an ancient city of Vestini people who came into conflict with the Romans in the year of the consulate of Junius Brutus Sceva, the 325 BC In that time the city was mentioned by Livy. The name of Civitella appears for the first time in "Chronica S. Monasterii Casinensis". The country at that time was called Civitella dell'Abbadia for the presence of the famous and fervent monastery of Santa Maria di Casanova. The monastery was the first and most powerful of Abruzzo, the most illustrious and famous of the five Cistercian arising in the land of Abruzzo, and was erected in 1191 by the Countess Margarita, mother of Berardo II, Count of Laureto and Conversano, and was entrusted to the Cistercian Order in the 12th century with a rich endowment. Going forward in time the importance and prosperity of the monastery grew to the point that it, according to the Bindi, boasted among its fiefs the castrum of Rossi, which is to Civitella, the land of Carpineto, Fara, of Cretano of vestige of Brittoli and even the islands of Tremiti. Became so powerful that boast possessions in distant lands, as in Lucera in Apulia, to obtain the consent of Alexander IV in 1258 about the annexation and the total absorption of the thriving as illustrious monastery of San Bartolomeo di Carpineto, a project that was entitled to the political level the following year with a diploma of King Manfred. In times of prosperity, the monastery came to house 500 monks, many of which are devoted to the humanities, the transcription of the text and the thumbnail of the codes. Lived and worked Erimondo, famous bookseller and famous minaturista digit code in Lombard born in Civitella Casanova. And if he is, thanks to the people of the area have been raised by the conditions of the serfs to that of expert farmers. Its codes were taken to Milan in the 17th century by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, abbot of the abbey, who ruled from 1591 until his death in 1631. The splendor of the monastery lasted for about seven centuries, during which the town developed with a certain peace of mind, living in the shadow of the abbey and following the instructions of the Cistercian fathers. We also remind you throughout all these years twinning Abbey Casanova, one of the most important and powerful of Abruzzo, with the Abbey of Casamari. Supervened, then, the decline and destruction by in 1807 during the reign of Joseph Bonaparte. Today there are only a few ruins of the monastery, on the border with the municipality of Villa Celiera. The country therefore had to fight not just in modern times to maintain its own identity and achieve full autonomy, especially in the neighboring countries.