Orsara di Puglia is a small town and ''
comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...
'' in the
province of Foggia
The Province of Foggia ( it, Provincia di Foggia ; Foggiano: ) is a province in the Apulia (Puglia) region of southern Italy.
This province is also known as Daunia, after the Daunians, an Iapygian pre-Roman tribe living in Tavoliere plain, an ...
,
Apulia, southern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
Named as ''Orsara Dauno-Irpina'' between 1861 and 1884, the town was part of the
province of Avellino until 1927.
History
The origins of Orsara date back to antiquity, as can be deduced from some archaeological findings that attest to the contacts with the
Osci
The Osci (also called Oscans, Opici, Opsci, Obsci, Opicans) were an Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum before and during Roman times. They spoke the Oscan language, also spoken by the Samnites of Southern Italy. Although the lang ...
and the
Irpini. In Roman times it was affected by the
Second Punic War while the Via Traiana, a variant of the more ancient
Via Appia
The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, ...
, passed along the course of the Sannoro stream.
In the
VIII century a community of
Basilian monks
Basilian monks are Roman Catholic monks who follow the rule of Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea (330–379). The term 'Basilian' is typically used only in the Catholic Church to distinguish Greek Catholic monks from other forms of monastic li ...
settled there , dedicated to the cult of the
archangel Michael
Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...
, who was
venerated
Veneration ( la, veneratio; el, τιμάω ), or veneration of saints, is the act of honoring a saint, a person who has been identified as having a high degree of sanctity or holiness. Angels are shown similar veneration in many religions. Etym ...
in the cave that today takes his name. In the Middle Ages the town, named ''Castrum Ursariae,'' was equipped with walls, which protected it from foreign incursions.
During Norman times, the court of Ripalonga were in defense of the
Via Francigena The Via Francigena () is an ancient road and pilgrimage route running from the cathedral city of Canterbury in England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome and then to Apulia, Italy, where there were ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. It w ...
. The knights of
Calavera
A calavera (Spanish – for "skull") is a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made (usually by hand) from either sugar (called Alfeñiques) or clay, used in the Mexican celebration of t ...
settled here during the mid 1200s and early 1300s.
Symbol
The coat of arms of the Municipality of Orsara di Puglia was granted by decree of the
President of the Republic on 8 March 2006.
Demographics
Dialect & Language
Alongside the
Italian language
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about ...
, the
Dauno-
Irpino
The Irpinian dialect, or Irpino, is the dialect of Neapolitan language spoken in almost all of the comuni in the Province of Avellino in the Italian region of Campania. It differs from other varieties in certain phrases, pronunciation and the us ...
dialect is also spoken in the commune.
Religion
Like most of Italy, the commune is largely
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. However there has been a large
Waldensian presence, perhaps from
Occitan people
The Occitans ( oc, occitans) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group originating in the historical region of Occitania ( southern France, northeastern Spain, and northwestern Italy). They have been also called Gascons, Provençals, and Auvergna ...
and
American immigrants since 1900. A Waldensian church in the Saint Nicola
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...
was opened in 1934.
Economy
The economy is essentially based on
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
, with crops of
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
,
broad beans
''Vicia faba'', commonly known as the broad bean, fava bean, or faba bean, is a species of vetch, a flowering plant in the pea and bean family Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated as a crop for human consumption, and also as a cover crop. Var ...
,
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
and
sunflowers
''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to N ...
; there are
poultry
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
, sheep and goat farms. In recent years, food and
wine tourism
Enotourism, oenotourism, wine tourism, or vinitourism refers to tourism whose purpose is or includes the tasting, consumption or purchase of wine, often at or near the source. Where other types of tourism are often passive in nature, enotourism ca ...
has had a strong boost, sealed by the recognition as a
Slow Food
Slow Food is an organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. It was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 and has since spread worldwide. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and re ...
city in 2007.
Places of interest
* Parish church of San Nicola, dating back to the 16th century: it preserves a wooden statue of the ''Madonna della Neve'', made in 1624 by the
Neapolitan sculptor Aniello Stellato.
* Church of
Santa Maria della Neve, built in the 17th century on an older building
* Abbey of Sant'Angelo or dell'Annunziata, built between the 8th and 11th centuries in Byzantine style and originally the monastery of Santi Nicandro and Marciano
* Convent of San Domenico, from the 11th century
* Grotta di San Michele Arcangelo, a pilgrimage destination from the 8th century
* Fountain of the Angel
* Fontana Nuova, (16th century)
* Baronial Palace, from the 13th century, with a tower with arched single lancet windows. It hosted the knights of
Calatrava and later the Guevara family, who were lords of Orsara.
* Torre Guevara, built in the second half of the seventeenth century by Duke Guevara di Bovino. In the early eighteenth century it was the hunting residence of
Charles III of Bourbon.
Festivals
The following are festivals celebrated in the town:
* 8 May - anniversary of the apparition of St. Michael the Archangel;
* Penultimate Sunday of June - wine festival;
* Last week of July / Before August - High Specialization Jazz Festival and Seminars "Orsara Jazz Festival & Orsara Jazz Summer Camp" which has been held since 1990;
* 5 August - feast of the
Madonna della Neve;
* 29 September - feast of St. Michael the Archangel;
* November 1st - ''fuoc acost and cocc 'priatorj'' According to tradition, the souls of
Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
return to earth on the evening of All Saints, therefore the people of Orsara decorate the streets of the town with pumpkins, which symbolize souls ( ''cocce priatorje'' ), and light bonfires of dry branches of broom (''fuoc acost'', from the Greek akostòi, scattered), to console them. The typical dessert, common to many southern towns (cooked wheat mixed with pomegranate grains and chopped walnuts and seasoned with vincotto) has the original name ''musc'tagl , perhaps from the French ''mouche taille'' .
References
External links
Official website
Cities and towns in Apulia
{{Puglia-geo-stub