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RAPINO

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PARK TOWNS Abbateggio Ateleta Bolognano Campo di Giove Cansano Caramanico Terme Civitella M. R. Corfinio Fara San Martino Gamberale Guardiagrele Lama dei Peligni Lettopalena Manoppello Montenerodomo Pacentro Palena Palombaro Pennapiedimonte Pescocostanzo Pizzoferrato Popoli Pratola Peligna Pretoro Rapino Rivisondoli Roccacasale Rocca Pia Roccaraso Salle Sant' Eufemia San Valentino   Serramonacesca Sulmona Taranta Peligna Tocco da Casauria NEARBY TOWNS Alanno Cepagatti Cugnoli Nocciano Pietranico Roccamontepiano Rosciano Scafa Turrivalignani

Bottom row,center photo: Giuliana Santovito of Rapino, holder of a Master of Fine Arts degree and one of the town's many fine ceramacists.  In the photo at left, her studio is in the building on the right.  In the photo to the right is a view further up the same street.  Photo above right: in town, with the steeple of the church of San Lorenzo in the distance.

Rapino is a typical Abruzzese mountain town perched on a hill on the northeast side of the Maiella at an elevation of 1200 feet; the population is 1569 inhabitants.   A cave near the town, the Grotta del Colle,  has yielded archaeological evidence that the area has been inhabited since prehistoric times.   There have been discoveries of statuary created in the 3rd and 7th centuries B.C. by the Marrucini, the Italic people who occupied the area.  And there are also remains from the Roman era, such as a 1st century A.D. tombstone, showing that the area was under imperial control.  In the feudal era, at the end of the 14th century, Rapino was controlled by the Letto family, the counts of Manoppello.  In the 15th century control passed to the Orsini family and then to the Colonna family. The site of the palace of the Colonna family (where the church of San Giovanni is today) is a point of architectural interest.  The palazzo was built in 1500 and was constituted from the Tower of Menarco (which still exists), a chapel and adjacent buildings. In 1600 the baroness Margarita of the Colonna family lived there.  Probably as the palazzo developed, the annexed chapel grew until it assumed the shape of the present-day church of Saint Giovanni. In 6th century in the Valle di Rio Secco (Dry River Valley) section of Rapino, a wooden monastery, the Eremo di San Salvatore a Majella, was built atop the ruins of a Roman settlement known as Tazze.  In 1031 the monastery's abbot, Givovanni,  transformed it into beautiful stone buildings and it became a rich and famous Benedictine monastery, around which grew up a small village.  At this monastery, during the Middle Ages,  lived Desiderius, the son of a prince of Benevento, who later became Pope Victor II.  About 1600 the monastery was reduced to ruins. There remains a doorway, which today is found in the church of Sant' Antonio, as well as some columns and decorations. Another architectural point of interest in Rapino is La Torre (tower) del Colle, which was part of the Castrum Collis De Majella, a castle of which sections of wall still remain.  The castle was constructed to defend  the village surrounding the monastery of Saint Salvatore a Majella.  It existed only briefly, about 1100 AD,  when the greater part of it  fell in ruin and the 1550 inhabitants relocated to the contrada (neighborhood, section of town) of Rapino.  The tower remains today. The most important church in Rapino is that of San Lorenzo, dating back at least to 1066 AD, when it is mentioned in the records of the Monastery of San Salvatore a Majella; it had belonged to the convent of Sant'Andrea sopra Casenuove.  According to tradition, when the French fought their way to Rapino and took control in 1799, destroying many houses, they sought to enter all the churches on horseback to show contempt. They rode into the churches of San Giovanni, San Rocco and Sant'Antonio, but they were unable to enter the church of San Lorenzo - when they tried to do so, San Lorenzo blocked the door and forced them to kneel, and thus San Lorenzo has been highly venerated in Rapino ever since. Rapino is noted for its long tradition of making ceramics, which continues today.  There are many fine craftsmen making and hand-decorating ceramic wares, and the town is one of the few in Abruzzo where ceramics are still made using the traditional glazes and patterns.

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