Abruzzo

ABRUZZO. - 1. GEOGRAPHY. - Region of central Italy, bounded by the Marche, Umbria, Lazio and Molise, which faces the Adriatic between the mouths of the Tronto and the Trigno and extends westward as far as the Simbruini and Ernici mountains, which separate the Marsica (western Abruzzo) from the Ciociaria (southeastern Lazio). From the narrow coastal strip made up of modest Tertiary hills (clays, marls, sands) one ascends abruptly onto a broad region of highlands (about 80 km wide by about 150 km long on average), enclosed on every side by mountains (Monti della Laga, Gran Sasso, Maiella, Meta, Ernici, Simbruini, Sabini) that in many places reach or exceed 2000 m (2914 m at Monte Corno, which is the highest of the entire Apennines). Other mountain barriers cross the whole interior in several series regularly ordered from northwest to southeast and nearly parallel, giving way to numerous longitudinal valleys (upper Velino, upper Tronto, Aterno, Salto, Turano, Liri, upper Aniene, Sangro), to basins that are remnants of lake basins (Fucino), to karst hollows (campi) and to more or less extensive patches of high planation surfaces.

The climate shows considerable diversity not only between the coastal margin and the interior, but, in the latter, between the closed basins or valley floors and the summit areas. In general the plateau has long and harsh winters, with abundant snowfall; rainfall is everywhere rather scarce, and as a rule decreases from west to east. The aridity and continentality of the climate, the pronounced and rugged relief (and the consequent difficulty of communications), and the prevalence of calcareous soils explain the pastoral vocation of Abruzzo, the modest development that agriculture assumes there and even more so modern industry, and the conservative character of its economy. The population is concentrated above all in the coastal region and in the intermontane basins, of which the most important are the largest: Sulmona (403 m.), Avezzano (698 m.) and Aquila (721 m.). The urban centres are few and of modest demographic size, only two of which (L'Aquila and Pescara) exceed 50,000 inhabitants.

Here are the statistical data relating to the four Abruzzese provinces:

Molise (v.) is usually joined to Abruzzo in a single historic region.

Giuseppe Caraci

2. HISTORY

In the time of the Roman empire the A. comprised the IV region of Italy, inhabited by the Sabine peoples in the area of Rieti, Antrodoco and Amiterno; by the Equi and the Marsi along the Cicoli valley and the uplands of Fucino; by the Vestini, who from Aveia and Forcona, near L'Aquila, extended as far as Ofena, Penne, Atri and Teramo, the ancient Praetutium, then Aprutium, whence the name Abruzzo later arose; by the Peligni, inhabitants of the ancient cities of Sulmona, Valva, Pentima, Corfinio; by the Marrucini, who had as their capitals Chieti (Teate) and Pescara (Amiternum); by the Frentani in the area of Ortona, Lanciano and Istonio, between the Maiella and the Adriatic; by the Samnites, who from Alfedena (Aufidena) and Castel di Sangro extended through the cities of Molise, Isernia, Trivento, Boiano.

Given the proximity of Latium to the A., evangelical propaganda certainly soon reached the aforesaid peoples and especially the cities flanking the consular roads Salaria, Valeria and Claudia Nova. In S. Vittorino d'Amiterno and in S. Giusta di Bazzano there exist Christian cemeteries, which are traced back to the 4th century. Angelo Silvagni has assembled some ten Christian epigraphs, collected in the A., which range from the 4th to the 6th century. Popular fancy and the whimsy of writers would claim that the most ancient episcopal sees of the region were founded by disciples of the apostles; modern criticism, however, with F. Lanzoni (Le diocesi d'Italia, I, pp. 344-80) and others, does not believe them older than the 4th century. There also flourished in the A., with the incipient Middle Ages, various Passiones, that is hagiographic legends, such as that of St. Anatolia martyr, of St. Maximus levite, of St. Victorinus of Amiterno, of St. Cetteus of Pescara, of the Celanese martyrs Simplicius, Constantius and Victorianus, of Rufinus and Cesidius in Trasacco, of St. Justin bishop of Chieti, of St. Giusta in Bazzano, of St. Eusanius and companions in Forcona, of St. Pelinus in Corfinio: legends all sifted and judged by the Bollandists in their Acta SS. and listed in the BHL, under their respective names and feast days. The medieval history of the A., besides the contemporary diplomatic documents, is transmitted to us by the monastic chronicles of Farfa, of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, of S. Clemente a Casauria, and of S. Bartolomeo a Carpineto. The Abruzzese polyhistor Antinori published almost all the Aquilan chronicles in Muratori's Antiquitates Italiae: in our own times F. Savini illustrated with very many unpublished documents the whole Church of Teramo. On the Aquilano Santo (Aquila 1849) and its Santuari, the Minorite D. Casciola da S. Eusanio wrote at length, later imitated by his confrere G. Obletter for the dioceses of Chieti and Vasto (Teramo 1924). In 1900 the second edition of the Calendario dei Santi Abruzzesi came out in Atri from the De Arcangelis press, arranged by a layman according to the day of their feast.

Aniceto Chiappini

3. SACRED ART

Art in Abruzzo had an almost exclusively religious character, and the church architecture of the Middle Ages was its highest and most original expression. The vestiges of monuments earlier than the year 1000 are scanty and irrelevant. The first awakening of artistic activities in the region was promoted during the 11th century by the immigration of monastic workshops from Montecassino: these, in the abbey church of S. Liberatore alla Maiella, established, from the earliest years of the 11th century, a type of basilical construction with three naves divided by square-plan piers and semicircular arches, with apses and exposed roof, from which Abruzzese sacred building long derived its salient characteristics.

To this first great architectural current, called precisely "of S. Liberatore", of a solemnly classicizing imprint even with Lombard elements, are linked the ancient oratory of S. Alessandro annexed to the Valvense cathedral, of a very singular plan, the churches of S. Pietro ad Oratorium di Capestrano, of S. Clemente al Vomano and that of S. Maria di Bominaco (early 12th century), in whose facade there begins timidly to be delineated that scheme with horizontal crowning which would constitute one of the most typical and constant characteristics of Abruzzese churches, continuing to enjoy favour well into the mature Renaissance (facade of S. Bernardino at Aquila, by Cola dell'Amatrice, 1540). "Heir and continuator of the methods of S. Liberatore" (Gavini) was the "Valvense School", which had its founding monument in the cathedral of S. Pelino ad Valvas near Pèntima, today Corfinio (consecrated in 1124), with an apsidal transept and octagonal tower-dome at the crossing, on which the cathedrals of Sulmona, Teramo and Chieti were modelled. The ornamental sumptuousness of the Valvense School was, however, surpassed by the stylistic refinements of the "Casauriense School", which, originally assimilating forms of Burgundian architecture (v. BORGOGNA, arte) such as had already appeared in the reconstruction of the abbey church of S. Giovanni in Venere at Fossacesia (begun 1165), created in S. Clemente a Casauria (1176-82) the masterpiece of the Romanesque architecture of the region. Alongside these three great schools, direct offshoots of Cassinese Benedictine art, there flourished during the 13th century some lesser ones, likewise of monastic imprint but with a greater variety of local accents: for example in the Marsica, where in the middle of the preceding century the Benedictines had built with classical remains the most noble temple of S. Pietro ad Alba Fucense. Such luxuriance in Romanesque architecture perhaps slowed the affirmation of French Gothic forms, of which Abruzzo received a precocious contribution in the Cistercian church of S. Maria d'Arabona near Chieti (founded in 1208); yet the currents derived from them, variously combining with the elements of tradition, gave rise at the end of the 13th century and throughout the 14th to a splendid flowering of churches especially in the territories of Lanciano and Atri and in the city of L'Aquila: the most elegant facade

The Aquilan facade of S. Maria di Collemaggio attests, at the end of the 14th century, the vitality and the capacity for renewal of a taste still partly inspired by the typical characteristics of the ancient local schools.

During the Romanesque period sculpture developed alongside architecture, drawing on the same sources of culture and itself contributing to determine its principal stylistic directions. Besides the ornamentation of architectural members and the decoration of facades and portals, it found expression in the creation of very numerous pulpits, ambos, ciboria, and Easter candlesticks, with luxuriant reliefs mostly of vegetal motifs, less frequently figured; and more than any other art it was penetrated by currents and influences of the most diverse origin, as is attested, for example, by the Arabizing style of Rogerio, Roberto and Nicodemo, who in the middle of the 12th century executed, often in collaboration, some of the best-known ciboria and ambos of the region (Ciborium of S. Clemente al Vomano, by Rogerio and Roberto; Ciborium of S. M. in Valle Porclaneta at Rosciolo, by Roberto and Nicodemo, 1150; Ambo of S. M. del Lago at Moscufo, by Nicodemo, 1159; Ambo of Cugnoli, by Nicodemo, 1166). Wood was widely employed for carving statues and characteristic groups of the seated Madonna with the Child, which, hewn from a single grandiose tree trunk, retained its slender and compact form: they were generally placed within tabernacles whose front doors bore painted on their inner faces small superimposed scenes of religious subject (Madonna of Fossa). In the oldest of these sculptures, down to the end of the 13th century (Madonna of Pietranseri), Byzantine echoes are discernible through the memory of the famous wooden groups of Latium, such as those of Acuto and of Alatri: but the most beautiful examples of the genre are of the 14th century, executed under the twofold French and Tuscan influence through contacts with the artistic circles of Angevin Naples. Thus, although the primitive, archaic compositional scheme does not appear substantially altered, accents and reflections of transalpine Gothic art and of the sculpture of Tino di Camaino are caught in the famous Madonna della Vittoria of Scurcola Marsicana and in the most beautiful one of S. Silvestro dell'Aquila, a masterpiece of 14th-century Abruzzese sculpture. During the 15th century the composition of these groups becomes far freer and more animated, while in the 16th century they were also executed in polychrome terracotta. The currents of the Renaissance were represented principally by Silvestro dell'Aquila (d. 1504), whose style has recently had its Marche-Urbino antecedents clarified: his major work is the Mausoleum of St. Bernardino in the church of the same name in L'Aquila.

Painting had scant development, excepting various cycles of frescoes of the 12th and 13th centuries, of Benedictine stamp, in the churches of the Aquilan mountain (S. Pietro ad Oratorium of Capestrano, S. Maria ad Cryptas of Fossa, S. Pellegrino of Bominaco), and, in the full 15th century, the lively decoration of the choir of the cathedral of Atri, the work of the eclectic Andrea Delitio: in compensation, among the minor arts at all times intensively practiced to supply to the needs of worship, goldsmithing was also notably prominent, producing from the Middle Ages to the 17th century reliquaries, monstrances, chalices, pastoral staffs and a very great number of processional crosses in embossed silver, with figural scenes, whose most celebrated examples are owed to Nicola da Guardiagrele (first half of the 15th century).

Enzo Carli

4. RELIGIOUS FOLKLORE

The traditional life of the Abruzzese people is permeated by a vivid religious sentiment. As in neighbouring Umbria, the treasure of popular religious poetry is very rich there, consisting especially of narrative songs inspired by episodes from the life of Christ, by hagiographic legends, by brief prayers against illnesses, by invocations and lyrical songs in which a sincere and ardent religious sentiment expresses itself in an original and moving language.

Also interesting is a group of brief legends in prose, which flourished around the Holy Family, Christ and the Apostles. Noteworthy, moreover, is the fact of the localization in A. of legends relating to various figures of the Gospel. There are also numerous living relics of the sacred drama, and dramatic processions, in which the spectacular element consists of tableaux evoking scenes from the Old or the New Testament. Such is the case, for example, of the festival of the talami of Orsogna (also called the festival of the fools or of the Madonna del Rifugio), which takes place on the second day of Easter. Of the same kind is also the representation held at Capistrello on Good Friday, which recalls episodes of the Passion, from the capture of Jesus to his crucifixion. In other towns, as at Lanciano, again during Holy Week, the dramatic element of the procession consists of the scene of Mary in search of her Son, a motif that finds a counterpart in many places of central-southern Italy. In this case, however, it involves statues, not people in costume, and the use of sacred and symbolic statues is the most widespread in these processions of Easter week. Also quite characteristic is the festival of the Madonna dei Turchi at Tollo (Chieti), during which the faithful, divided into two bands and armed with pikes, arrows, lances and halberds, enact a scene of combat between Christians and Saracens. A particular sense of rustic poetry, of candour and religious fervour animates the procession of the ox of St. Zopito, which is held at Loreto Aprutino on the Monday after Pentecost. Behind the statue of the patron saint, carried in procession, follows a majestic ox, kept without being subjected to field work, with its horns and tail adorned with ribbons of vivid colours; a red mantle covers it and a child dressed in white rides it. When the procession returns, the ox kneels on the threshold of the church and follows the statue even into the interior of the temple.

The processions of Bugnara (Aquila) and Bisenti (Teramo) also have a predominantly rustic character, where a garlanded little donkey goes about the town amid the sound of music, followed by a procession of girls carrying on their heads baskets filled with grain. But perhaps the most typical festival of the A. is the procession of the serpari, which is held in honour of St. Dominic at Cocullo (between Avezzano and Sulmona) on the first Thursday of May. A week beforehand, the villagers go to nearby Monte Luparo to hunt for snakes, which they then keep in cloth bags, and on the day of the festival the serpari, who precede and follow the statue of the saint, carry live snakes wrapped around their necks and arms, while other snakes are coiled around the statue. Since it is believed that on the place where the saint is venerated there once stood a temple dedicated to Angitia, these manifestations have been linked with the cult of that goddess. Thus in certain features of the rustic processions just described, connections have been sought with the festivals of Demeter. But even if in some cases the tradition may suggest a pre-Christian substratum, it is certain that today the whole festivity unfolds within the forms regulated by the Church.

Interesting manifestations, but not very different from those of other Italian regions, are the customs and festivals in the A. for St. Anthony Abbot, St. John and Christmas; for these we refer to the respective entries. Pilgrimages to the various sanctuaries of the region, dedicated for the most part to the Virgin, also hold great importance, including in colouristic terms, in the popular religious life of Abruzzo. Destinations of these pilgrimages are the sanctuaries of the Madonna del Lago at Scanno (Aquila), of the Madonna della Livera at Pratola Peligna, the grottoes of St. Michael the Archangel near Civitella del Tronto, of St. Angelo near Balsorano, of St. Colomba on the Gran Sasso and others. Some destinations lie beyond the borders of A., such as the Holy House of Loreto and the sanctuary of the Archangel St. Michael on Monte Gargano. - See Plates IX-X.

Paolo Toschi