SOLOFRA IN SHORT
Solofra is situated in a valley of the
Picentini Mountains, communicating with the Montoro-St. Severino plain that links
up the Irno and Sarno basins and is an important vital knot of the Campania
plain.
The small town has been helped in its
history and economy by its particular geographic position.
Its territory was the residence of a Sannite outpost on the road between the
Sabato and Irno valleys and of a settlement of the Roman Abellinum colony.
With the invasions its piedmont crags
became seats of two early medieval lines of communication protected by St. Angel and St. Mary’s
parish church which
greatly influenced the forming of its people identity. It enabled the Solofra
works to gravitate towards Salerno on which it depended and to which the
territory was tributary.
When it was occupied by the Longobards it was absorbed into the Benevento Duchy and was part of
the Rota (St.Severino) gastaldato. In those days the valley was divided into
two territories: the locum
Solofre and the locum de sancta Agatha.
During the Norman-Swabian period it became a vico and was first part of the Rota County, then it was
part of the feud of the Tricaricos under whom it got its territorial and
administrative autonomy (XIII century), becoming the feud of Giordano
Tricarico. It was then given by Giordano’s brother, James Tricarico, as a
dowery to his daughter Giordana, who married Alduino Filangieri from Candida.
The Filangieris fostered the link with the artisan-mercantile world of
Salerno and built, in the mercantile centre of Solofra, the public platea, the
monastery of the Augustinian friars (seond half of the XIVcentury).
After the Filangieri branch died out, the
feud passed to the Zurlos from Naples and to the Della Tolfas from Serino. After a
brief period of feudal autonomy, it passed to the Orsinis from Gravina who transferred the possessory title of their
principality on the feud they kept up until the abolition of feudality (1806).
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In the history of Solofra we can identify
an important antifeudal line, concerning also a claim in defence of the small
town’s artisan-mercantile jobs, which was fulfilled when its citizens fought
against the Orsinis (between the end of the XVII century and the beginning of
the XVIII century) and characterized the Enlightement of Solofra, resulting in
the Neapolitan
Revolution of 1799. Important was also its taking
part in the Carbonaro risings of 1820-21 with four Carbonari groups and in the
labour conflicts of the beginning of the 20th century when developed
a socialist cell, comprising both Solofra and S. Agata.
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The small town is characterized by the skin tanning deriving from sheepfarming which, thanks to its favourable
environmental conditions, has now got a great number of tanneries. In fact, it
was part of a pole specialized in wool and skin manufacture, deriving from
sheepfarming products and gravitating towards the market of Salerno comprising
the Giffoni and S.Severino hamlets too, which had unremitting relations with
Solofra.
We can understand the importance of the
artisan-mercantile world of Solofra if we consider that, at the beginning of
the 16th century , the little town was formed of 15 hamlets, that on
the territory there were 40 "apotheche de consaria"which made a great
variety of products
coire pelose, barbare, per calzarelli, in pigna, levantesche,
coire membrane(parchments), soles, coiramine, scardose, vacche levantesche, di
Sicilia, alessandrine, sardesche, pelli conciate in galla, di sommacco, de
calce, di mortella in bianco;
and were practiced a lot of skills linked
to skins
arte de conciaria, de coraria, de mercanzia, de vinticaria, de
fabricar calzarelli e scarpe, de far funi e cordomane, de corredare, de far
auropelle, de far carte membrane, de vender lana, de far mortella, de far
summacchi.
To these skills we have to add other local
jobs, such as the pork salting and the pork working, which go back to the
Longobard times, and the gold-beater art in which the artisans reached a
particular specificity and a special cleverness.
In the area was created a true pole of
products linked to the herd industry that supplied a lively mercantile world.
Thanks to this social
and economic condition a splendid collegiate church (St. Michael’s cathedral, at present a national monument)
was built on the ancient parish church, which was knocked down at the beginning
of the 16th century to make room for a church that could better
express the social condition of the town.
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The Orsinis settled in Solofra with their
own palace (second half of the XVI century) opposite the Collegiate church so
that this area, where stands the Zurlo Palace too, is the historic centre
symbolizing the local set up.
They built "St. Maria delle Grazie"
Nunnery (later St. Chiara nunnery), situated in the same area, and "St. Domenico" Monastery (1644) which
preserves the feudatory Dorotea’s mortal remains.
THE LIONS FOUNTAIN IS A PRECIOUS
MONUMENT OF SOLOFRA’S HANDICRAFT
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Solofra was the birthplace of :
Francesco Guarini (1611-54), representative of the Neapolitan seventeenth
century painting;
Gregorio Ronca (1859-1911), who went on useful voyages and made
scientific discoveries which were applied by the Italian Navy;
Giuseppe Maffei, who was an authoritative representative of the XVIII
century Neapolitan Court, a professor and Chancellor of Naples University, and,
as a scholar of Neapolitan Institutes, he arranged, in a voluminous,
historical, important work, all the rules and Customs which had developed in
the South.
Besides, we have to remember the doctors Riccardo, Andrea and Niccolò
Fasano who, in the XIV century, were experts in
the medical profession at the Angevian court gaining important economic
privileges for Solofra; Onofrio Giliberti (1618-1665), a
matematician, astronomer and man of letters who was a member of the Solofra
Academy "Amene lettere"; Gabriele Fasano (1645-1689), priest and
man of letters, who translated "The Gerusalemme Liberata" by Tasso
into Neapolitan, taking part in the literary relations between Naples and
Florence; Costantino Vigilante (1685-1754), bishop in
Caiazzo, who contributed to the renewal movement started by Charles III; Massimiliano Murena (1728-1781), jurist and
philisopher, author of important Neapolitan Enlightement works; Matteo Barbieri
(1746-1789), lover of mathematical sciences and author of a fundamental popular
scientific work "Historical information about the philosophers
and matematicians of the Neapolitan Kingdom"; Felice Giannattasio (1759-1849),
matematician, astronomer and philosopher; Leonardo Santoro (1764-1853), innovative doctor and surgeon; Antonio Giliberti (1809-1900), theologian
and Latin scholar, who wrote "Pantheon
Solophranum" in Latin verses, in which he celebrated the local glories; Felice De Stefano (1889-1936), a naval
engineer and a crew member of a dirigible during the first World War.
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Traduzione della professoressa Michelina
Luciano
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Da M. De Maio, Alle radici di Solofra, Avellino,
1997; Solofra nel Mezzogiorno
angioino-aragonese, Solofra, 2000.
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