2. An ancient small town of Oscan origin, AQUILONIA
became one of the most important centres in Samnium. It
was destroyed by the Romans in 293 B.C., ravaged by
barbarians in the 6th century and then rebuilt by the
Lombards. It was destroyed again by the Normans in 1078.
Till the end of the 15th century, its population lived in the
centre of Carbonara and in various hamlets, placenames
of which still exist (Casalvetere, Pietrapalomba, Sassano, Pesco di
Rago, S. Leonardo, etc.).
3. Afterwards, the fief of Carbonara/Aquilonia belonged to
the Del Balzo family, then to the Caracciolo family and,
up to 1806, to the Imperiale family. A violent antiliberal
uprising in 1860 caused nine victims; it was followed by
bloody repression and the old name of the town,
Aquilonia, was re-established.
4. The old urban centre was damaged by recurrent earthquakes,
the last of which in 1930 was catastrophic. The new town was
rebuilt southwestward, about one kilometre away from the old
one: its subdivision into small insulae (islands), its large, straight
streets, and its moderate height buildings make Aquilonia a
modern small town where staying is pleasant.
5. In the whole
territory
Samnite,
Roman, and
Lombard tombs
are found, as
well as
abundant clay,
stone, and
metal material.
In the locality
named
Groveggiante,
a necropolis of
the 4th – 3rd
centuries B.C.
has been
6. Thanks to special recovering-rebuilding-reassembling
interventions, the old centre of Carbonara, which has been
rediscovered after seventy years of neglect and looting, has
been transformed into a striking Archaeological Park.
7. It is a big-sized Park, with
the ancient town plan
perfectly preserved. The
ancient Carbonara,
brought to light and
reassembled, looks like a
medieval Pompeii.
8. Besides the wonderful paving
of the Piazza Municipio (Town
Hall Square), where stood the
two churches (San Giovanni
and L’Immacolata),
the Town Hall, the Magistrate’s Courthouse, the Grain Pool,
and the Prison, you can also admire the remains of old
palaces.
9. A building in the Park, which has been put
back into use and fitted for exhibition needs,
houses a MUSEUM OF TRAVELLING TOWNS,
containing historical documents, written texts,
photos, period films, videos, and explanatory
panels.
10. The big ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM of Aquilonia contains about
13,000 (thirteen thousand) original objects, which have been
gathered with a painstaking piece of research: tools,
implements, outfits and furniture, utensils and furnishings, finds
and documents of all kinds, displayed in an evocative
atmosphere, tell the stories and the everyday existence of
many generations of the local community which have
followed one anotherthrough the centuries, thus bringing
back to life a lost world.
11. All that material has not been arranged by collections, but
only used to reconstruct with philological rigour house and
work environments, real-life scenes that allow us to travel
back to an old reality and to plunge as by magic into the
millenary history of our civilization.
12. The Ethnographic Museum is a very effective
teaching instrument, it is like a big book written using
the silent, evocative language of the material
culture, which fascinates the visitor and gets him to
be emotionally involved.
13. The display, covering about 1.500 (one thousand five
hundred) sq.m and an open-air fitted-out area, is divided
into more than 130 (onehundred thirty) settings, which are
grouped into 12 (twelve) thematic sections.
14. The Ethnographic Museum of Aquilonia is, in its field, one of
the richest, best organized, and most exhaustive museums in
Italy: all aspects, even the least ones, of the community’s life
in bygone days are shown andrigorously documented.
