Panni · Monteleone di Puglia · Anzano di Puglia · FG
They are three towns in the province of Foggia; two of them border Campania. For two of them the border is also administrative history: Monteleone di Puglia, according to the records of the Regione Puglia, passed from the province of Avellino to that of Foggia in 1929; Anzano, according to its Municipality, was Irpinian from 1862 to 1931, under the name Anzano degli Irpini. The second thread is the earthquakes, which in Panni brought down a tower and in Panni and Anzano destroyed churches, some of them rebuilt. The journey is for those who accept small towns and scant sources. The theme of villages and trails holds only in part: the only trail described in the sources reaches Panni, and of Monteleone almost nothing is known but its feudal history, not its monuments. The order of the stops and the days are our proposal.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Panni
Walkers arrive from the Cervaro valley. The Va' Sentiero page on the Sentiero Italia stage from Orsara di Puglia to Panni gives 15.2 km, difficulty E, 626 metres of ascent: the route passes over the summit of the Montagna, at 957 metres, descends to Montaguto and the Cervaro stream, then climbs back up to the town. There are no waymarks, the only water point is at Montaguto, and the page dates from 2019. At the top of the town, writes the GAL Meridaunia, the Rocca holds the ruins of a watchtower that the GAL dates, with a “it seems”, to the early 16th century (the attributions differ), probably built against Turkish raids to control the valley: it was about thirteen metres high on a base of eight, and it was brought down by the earthquake of 1732. The place of worship of the Chiesa Madre di Santa Maria Assunta already dates from the 11th century; the new church, completed between 1830 and 1842 for 14,000 ducats, partly used the stones of the castle; the earthquakes of 1930 and 1962 left standing its perimeter walls, the façade and the side chapels, and today's building dates from 1985. From the older church comes the white marble statue of the Madonna di Loreto; the clock on the façade arrived in 1905 from Rovato, in the Brescia area. Along the main street, the Chiesa del Purgatorio bears on its portal the date 1802 and the name of its patron, Pietro Cotoia, who had it built on his own land; next to the Chiesa del Calvario stand five iron crosses with double crossbars. In the portal of Palazzo Manuppelli the GAL reads the work of local stonecutters: animals, volutes, swirls. The sanctuary of the Madonna del Bosco, about six kilometres away on the slope of Monte Crispignano, was founded in 1503 by Tommaso Caraffa, lord of Bovino, and was an Augustinian convent; every year a procession carries its statue to the Chiesa Madre. The mountain, which Va' Sentiero gives at 1,105 metres, has pastures at the top and, according to the GAL, many orchids, wolves and birds of prey. The next day, in our schedule, heads towards the border.
Day 2 — Monteleone di Puglia
In Monteleone the open sources describe neither a square nor a portal: they tell of a contested territory. A CartApulia record of the Regione Puglia recalls that in 1140 Roger the Norman convened here the Assize of Selvamala, from which came the first fundamental laws of the Norman kingdom of the South. In 1285 Charles I of Anjou made the land a feudal demesne, and in the 14th century the inhabitants tried to break away from Ariano to have a demesne of their own. In 1495 Ferdinand II ceded it for 300 gold ducats to Martino Marziale; within a century the fief changed hands at least five times, among the Gonzaga, Carafa, Guevara, Brancia and Capece Galeota, before the Platti. Under the barons the baronial residence was paid for with heavy taxes; at one point, the record recalls, the inhabitants asked to return to the fief of Ariano; under the Platti, in the 17th century, taxes did not rise and the Chiesa Madre was built. The 16th century was also a time of plagues, earthquakes and trials of Waldensians before the bishop of Bovino, an officer of the Inquisition; Wikipedia mentions Provençal Waldensian refugees and an Arbëreshë community, later assimilated. After 1806 the Università enlarged the demesne and opened a public school; after Unification a mayor restored the Chiesa Madre, brought post and telegraph and turned the former convent of the Friars Minor into the Town Hall. In 1977 the town passed from the diocese of Ariano to that of Bovino. Wikipedia also tells of a women's revolt in 1942, with 180 arrests: it is a collaborative source, to be re-verified. From here one goes on to Anzano.
Day 3 — Anzano di Puglia
Anzano has a small territory, divided between a Puglia side and a Campania side. The municipal coat of arms shows a Doric temple crossed by a road paved with grey paving stones, and it is a clue: the Municipality places the town at the crossroads between the via Herculea and the via Aurelia Aeclanensis, and the Ministry of Culture's record has the road between Aeclanum and Herdonia pass through it. In 841, according to both sources, the estate was donated by Lothair I to the monastery of Farfa. The Municipality recounts the late-medieval depopulation, whose true causes it declares unknown: in 1462 Ferrante of Aragon, besieging Accadia for nineteen days, almost certainly also destroyed Anzano, which in 1487 is recorded as uninhabited and merged with Trevico; in the early 18th century straw huts and farmsteads returned, in 1799 a hamlet of 825 souls requested autonomy and obtained it by 1810. Then the earthquakes. The one of 1930 killed 39 people and brought down the ancient three-aisled Romanesque mother church and the church of San Donato, not yet consecrated. The ministerial record recalls that the 1930 earthquake destroyed the church of Santa Maria and that the ancient statue of the Madonna was also lost. 1962 and 1980 erased the rest, and of the old town only a few portals of private houses remain. The Chiesa di Santa Maria di Anzano was rebuilt after 1930; the singular detail lies in the small church of Mastralessio, from the 1950s, which has the portals of the church of San Donato. In piazza Municipio the War Memorial was paid for by a collection among the inhabitants. Mario Melino, later director general of the Società Umanitaria of Milan, was born in Anzano in 1916. One side of the territory is skirted by the Regio Tratturo Pescasseroli–Candela, originally 111 metres wide: every August, writes the Municipality, a group of riders retraces it from Candela to Pescasseroli, and the journey, towards the border, ends there.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 13 defects corrected · not approved