Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, in the province of Avellino, has a typically medieval layout with a central road axis that ends at the Cathedral dedicated to Sant’Antonino.
In the ninth century the Lombards divided the territory of Longobardia minor into two parts, one with capital Benevento and one with capital Salerno. It was in that period that the Lombards of Salerno erected a series of fortifications to defend the border, including the castle of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi whose construction favoured the formation of the village that took its name from its founders. The period of maximum splendour was the Norman-Swabian one, then it passed to the Caracciolo family around the 16th century as Sergianni Caracciolo, in agreement with Giovanna II, had the feud of Sant’Angelo granted to his brother Marino. After this moment the feud was bought by the Imperial family who kept it until 1807. Napoleon made it a nerve-centre of administration, the court was placed here and the diocese has been there for hundreds of years. The citizens of the village of Irpinia were no strangers to the Carbonari uprisings and during the Neapolitan revolution the tree of freedom was planted in the village, which is still preserved today (probably replanted in memory of those events).
Due to the earthquake of the 80’s the village was seriously damaged and even today the traces of the cataclysm are still preserved.
