Roseto Valfortore · San Marco la Catola · Celenza Valfortore · Carlantino · FG
Four towns in the province of Foggia along the course of the Fortore. Roseto Valfortore stands in the upper valley of the river, according to the Ministry of Culture's record; San Marco la Catola, Celenza Valfortore and Carlantino look out over the lake of Occhito, which the Fortore forms behind a dam built between 1958 and 1966. Celenza and Carlantino share a history: the latter was born in 1582 as a new casale in the fief of the former, at the wish of a Baron Gambacorta. The Government's Strategia Aree Interne describes the area as fragile and marked by depopulation. The theme of paths holds little: two routes of a 2015 programme touch three of the four towns; one of the two, the Sentiero Frassati, is also mentioned by the GAL Meridaunia near the swimming pools of Roseto, with a different destination; of the current route we have no confirmation. It is a journey for those who have time for small towns and their papers.
At a glance
Duration. 4 days.
The route
Day 1 — Roseto Valfortore, the stréttole and the mills
Roseto stands at 650 metres on the western slope of Monte Stilo, in the upper Fortore valley. The Ministry of Culture's record explains why the place was probably inhabited early: the numerous springs made the soil fertile, good for vegetable gardens and pasture. The name appears for the first time, the GAL Meridaunia recalls, in a Lombard charter of 752 with which King Liutprand granted freedom to the slave Cunda and her son Liupergo. The Angevins gathered the scattered populations into a more substantial settlement; the fief went to the Di Capua: in the 16th century the marquis Bartolomeo III had the Palazzo built, with a massive keep, and the Chiesa Madre di Santa Maria Assunta. The Arco della Terra, the only surviving gate of the medieval citadel and perhaps its main passage, has a stone head called the “testa del marchese”; a flag was raised there, writes the GAL, on the days when the feudal lord administered justice. From Piazza Vecchia the stréttole start, paved alleys: one of the narrowest served to collect rainwater. The stonecutters drew from the local quarry portals, columns and the balustrade of the Chiesa Madre. The oratory of San Filippo Neri was a private house until 1623, when the archpriest Don Sante De Santis donated it to the Rosetani: every 26 May bread and vegetables are thrown from its balcony, a custom born, writes the GAL, to give a meal to the needy.
According to the GAL the Mulino Vecchio houses the Museo di Arte Antica, and from the tanks of the Mulino a Monte swimming pools have been made, near the start of a stretch of the Sentiero Frassati. The communal wood of Vetruscelli, reachable from the village, has the Osservatorio di Ecologia Appenninica. The next day one goes towards the Catola valley.
Day 2 — San Marco la Catola, from the castrum to the palace
San Marco la Catola stands in the Subappennino Dauno, over the Catola valley, above its confluence with the Fortore. The Ministry of Culture's record finds it among the Swabian castra of the Statutum de reparatione castrorum, of 1241-1246. In 1274 the castrum belonged to the Bartaldo; in the Angevin period the town was exempted from taxes because it was depopulated and impoverished, until Queen Joanna I removed the exemption. At the centre stands the Palazzo ducale of the Pignatelli, an irregular fortified complex with two towers, high walls, bastions and a triple entrance; the core is perhaps medieval, but no one, the record warns, has studied its phases systematically. The Pignatelli held the fief until 1821, when the last feudal lord sold it to the Veredice. According to the GAL Meridaunia the palace is today under restoration, and every 21 August beneath its walls the Giostra della Jaletta is held.
Around it, stepped alleys and modest two-storey houses, with the house proper and the “basso”, which has a secondary door. The parish church of San Nicola di Mira was completed in 1611; outside the walls the chapel of San Rocco was born after the plague of 1657. The Capuchin convent was founded in 1585 beside the chapel of Santa Maria di Giosafat, and the church was consecrated in 1713 by Cardinal Vincenzo Maria Orsini, later Pope Benedict XIII. According to italia.it, in the early 20th century Padre Pio, then a theology student, lived here for a short period. The next day one goes to Celenza, another town on the same bank.
Day 3 — Celenza Valfortore, the town of the Gambacorta
Celenza Valfortore stands on the border with Molise, where, writes the GAL Meridaunia, ancient routes and transhumance tratturi crossed. According to the GAL the Gambacorta rebuilt the town after the earthquake of 1456; in 1571 it took the name of “Celenza di Valle Fortore” and the goddess Ceres as its emblem. The castle was begun in 1467 by Giovanni Gambacorta and transformed in 1575 by Carlo into a noble residence; a second tower, which in the 18th century housed the prisons, collapsed after a fire set in 1799 by the Neapolitan revolutionaries. Today it is a private residence and can be seen almost only from outside: crenellated tower, three loggias, covered courtyard.
For Baron Carlo Gambacorta the works on Santa Croce also began in 1569. The façade originally followed Abruzzese Romanesque models, and its rose window and volutes remain; in 1970 the thirteen Baroque altars were demolished, “improvidently” writes the GAL. It keeps a wooden San Giuseppe with the Child by Giacomo Colombo and an Assumption of the Virgin of 1656 by Benedetto Brunetti. In 1622 Andrea Gambacorta and Feliciana Spinelli had the church and monastery of San Nicola built, which on its portal honours an ancestor, the Beata Chiara Gambacorta, and keeps an altarpiece of 1759 by Michele Scaroina; for three centuries the Poor Clares lived there. The next day one goes to the town that a Gambacorta founded from scratch.
Day 4 — Carlantino and the lake of Occhito
Carlantino stands on a ridge that dominates the Fortore valley and the Occhito reservoir, on the border with Molise. According to the Ministry of Culture's record, in the Middle Ages the casale of San Giovanni lay nearby; the present settlement was founded in 1582 by Baron Carlo Gambacorta, who obtained from Philip II assent to build a new casale in the fief of Celenza. The original name, the record notes, was Carlentino. The founding layout remains: two parallel rows of houses along a north-south axis, wide streets, between the Palazzo baronale and the parish church. In 1809, in the Murattian decade, Carlantino became a municipality independent of Celenza. The parish church of San Donato was completed in 1602 and rebuilt in 1757; in 1711, at the apostolic visitation of Cardinal Domenico Orsini, it had an attached hospital for the poor and wayfarers. The same visitation mentions the chapel of the Santissima Annunziata, at the foot of Monte San Giovanni, where the FAI points out an unsigned pipe organ, of the Neapolitan organ-building tradition, with the initials “G. M.” and the date 1877; it is damaged, and the FAI is calling for its recovery.
According to the GAL Meridaunia the Occhito dam, which blocks the Fortore in the territory of Carlantino, was built between 1958 and 1966; the lake has Apulian towns on one side and Molisan ones on the other and is managed by the Consorzio di Bonifica di Capitanata to irrigate a good part of the Tavoliere. The river of Roseto's upper valley is held back here for the fields of the plain: the journey, in our proposal, ends on the shore.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 14 defects corrected · not approved