ANCIENT TIMES

Mount Miletto was covered with snow when the Roman militias crossed the Matese during the second Samnite War. Something terrible happened in that period because the countryside from San Croce to the village became full of military graves.

Since the millennia, man had already taken advantage of the natural resources that the mountain offers, but it was some centuries after this that it is certain that people lived in S. Gregorio Matese. The proof comes from a Christian tombstone that records the death of three little brothers dated in the summer of 553 A.D.

For centuries and centuries there is no trace of the hard life of the peasant and the shepherd, nevertheless the population increased, growing around the Benedictine Monastery close to Padule, in the area where the scholastic building is today. The point of reference was the church dedicated to San Gregorio I the Pope, which rose on the present belvedere where the market is held. Its crypts were for centuries the cemetery of the village, and today the containment wall is still visible.

Centuries later the Cistercensi arrived, whose installation was a little distance from the village. This monastic installation was for a long time the center for the social life in the area. Then everything disappeared and only the monastery Wall remained. It still exists, appearing on the overhang of the Hell Deep Valley (Vallone dell’ Inferno).

Towards the end of the 1500s there already existed some of the families of the present day people of San Gregorio: the De Lellis, Bojano, Fattore, Loffreda and Ferritto. Most were shepherds, farmers, donkey drivers and mushroom gatherers, but there also were the doctor and the midwife, the tailor and the shoemaker. The sons of the rich studied at the Alifano Seminary.

The land of the Matese was of the feudal overlord, the Count Gaetani. The peasants had to ask permission in order to work to gain the little amount of food they needed to exist, even in the severe winters.

FROM XVI TO XVIII CENTURY

Meanwhile the country had taken its shape: . The below street, “curzu re sotta”, “) today is the Gaetano Del Giudice street and the above street “curzu re coppa”, is the Redentore street with the maze of alleys that connect them. These are named for the families that inhabited them, like “Cola Caso” lane, “Tomasone” street and “Alesio Ciccarelli” neighborhoods, or with names that have disappeared today, Rizadri, Babione, Carcasini, Autera and Trave.

S.Gregorio, like all of the villages of the area, was a part of Piedimonte town in whose Municipality it was represented by Castello village. The parish was situated in Castello from which it depended, being on it’s own since 1596.

At the beginning of the 1700s, the church of San Gregorio fell. Since then the Holy does not have more one, also because there was the new Mother Church that possessed land and sheep, and the church of the Congrega, where the graves of the rich were located.

In the second half of 1700 the social people turned to the country. There were the brothers Valenzio and Gaetano Del Giudice, doctor and druggist. There was the Caso of Fontana family with the brothers Vincenzo, Mariano and Giovanni, all land owners, and the Caso of Calcarella family, with the landowner Don Vincenzo and the doctor Raffaele. The successive divisions of the estates between the many sons and grandsons in the new generations had already decreased the wealth of the ancient Spanish Mezzullo family.

July of 1748 is an historical date: the countryseat of San Gregorio had obtained its autonomy from Piedimonte and wrote its first Catasto Onciario.

In 1793 a devout girl, Maddalena Caso, 19 years old had died. Her body, exhibited in the church, miraculously raised its arm to greet those present. The Bishop of Alife arrived then to verify the supernatural event. The Blessed Maddalena was buried in the bell tower. Since then her ghost, who is good, frightens all of the children that ascend too near to the bells.
Meanwhile the Town Hall was organized, the actions of the civil state began.

XIX CENTURY

The brigants began to infest the Matese in the first years of 1800s. Among them were many young people of San Gregorio. There was a certain Mezzullo and the well-known Francesco Stocchetti, aforementioned Mezzavoce, who did not hesitate to attack Pietraroia with its band.
As time passes on. On the days of festivity the girls wear their good clothing, as the folk costume recovered in the years ‘80 from the Local Tourist Association (Pro Loco). At Christmas time the young people sing the “12 Months” going from house to house, from the Ciminterio to the end down “in the middle of Copela”. At Easter they carry the frittata (omelettes) to be blessed. But the most heartfelt festivity is the Corpus Domini, when the colorful blankets are exposed in the windows while the archpriest with the monstrance in hand passes by.

Nearby the lake a festivity for St. Michael Archangel is held, while the more devout people go on foot to Sala di Caserta village, in honor of St. Donato.

San Gregorio Matese is a tranquil village. The poor work and eat little; the rich are well and enlarge their property. The wealth comes from the sheep. During the summer the sheep are on the Matese, while in winter they come down in droves to Tavoliere of the Puglia, where the rich sangregorians, the owners of the “lease” are at the nearby Sheep Custom house of Foggia. Every year it is a biblical exodus that brings many men and boys away from the village. From October to May they transfer themselves to the villages of Apricena and San Severo. In San Gregorio the farmers, the old men, the women with the children all remain.

In order to remove the summer thunderstorms, the parochial bell, named Maria Soprana, is heard.
The Caso family has the palace, that one for antonomasia, until the today place of evening meeting is just called “on the palace”, like it is still today, two centuries later. The other Caso family has its villa in the Calcarella lane, which is under the arc of Elci street. At one time a guest of theirs was the young Gioacchino Toma, a painter who will became famous; he paints in San Gregorio the portraits of the local notables.

Adjacent to the Caso of Calcarella villa, the Del Giudice family built the Villa Ginevra, because the family had so enlarged itself that there was no more spacious in the paternal palace. This great construction that runs on two sides of the main road of the village, from the point where the Congrega Church is now, extending from Tore street down to Padule, to the palm near the spring. After the passing of the Del Giudice family, in a part of the palazzo, the barracks of the Police officers were lodged until the 1960s.

BRIGANDS AND GARIBALDIANS

When the Borbon reign was about to end, the San Gregorio people expressed important liberal figures that they should take power in their hands upon the arrival of Garibaldi. In 1861 Beniamino Caso became the elected deputy to the Parliament of Turin. Gaetano Del Giudice became the Governor of Capitanata besides deputy, while his brother Achille became the Commander of the National Guard of all the neighborhoods and Provincial Councilman.

That year brigands abounded, , a mixture of loyalists and criminals. They were twenty years of iron and fire. The Piemontese army occupied all the Matese. The people at this time were not able to hoe, hunt, or collect firewood.

In San Gregorio the brigand, when they were captured, were shot in front of the Town Hall, on the spot facing the gate of Villa Luisa, near the fountain. Don Achille Del Giudice ordered the repression of brigandage. He formed a squadron of personal guards who when they served, went up to the Matese in order to catch some unfortunate person. The head of these ransom hunters was Carmelo Del Giudice, a distant relative. He would pocket many prizes and later go on to Argentina where he later died.

The brigands at times were fierce, more often desperate. Don Achille was no less severe than they were. The brigand Panella’s head was cut off and exposed in the window of his study, under the arc of the Del Giudice Villa. Meanwhile he continued to bring the most attractive young girls to the Villa San Donato, exercising “jus primae noctis” a right to the virginity of his vassal’s daughters on their wedding-night, which nobody had the courage to rebel against.

There were many brigands from San Gregorio. The ringleader Antonio De Lellis, Domenico Ferritto, Nicola Verruto and Raffaele De Lellis, nicknamed Holy Father, which sowed the fear in the Benevento province. Among them also was a woman, Maria Maddalena De Lellis, called “brigantessa Padovella”. She was from a poor house of the Elci street who joined the brigands for the love of the Lance Corporal Andrea Santaniello.

But then the brigandage was over.

COUNTRYMEN AND EMIGRANTS

The repetitious use of the usual given and surnames compelled the use of nicknames which marked the families for many generations. There are “ru cocciero”, “ru saracaro “, “muto”, “frungilla”, “ru papa” and “ru ribello”, “corecontento” and “voccapiccirillo”. The most recent, from “fanfani” to “trullallà“, posterity will discover them.

Towards the end of the 1800s in San Gregorio something happened that nobody could forget. In the Parco d’ Amore a girl, Mariannella, was found beheaded from a hatchet blow. The truth will never be known. Her fiancée ended in prison, but in the village it was murmured that a suitor from a nearby neighborhood, hurriedly, was taken to the steamboatheaded for America. Steamboats were used by many of the villagers between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of next century. They were used for emigration to Buenos Aires and New York, and also to San Paolo, Montevideo and Assuncion, but always with the hope of returning to the Matese. This emigration emptied the village. In the last thirty years of 1800 a thousand people had departed. It was an irreversible demographic hemorrhage that continued through the 1900s with the new added destinations of Switzerland, Germany and Great Britain. Meanwhile San Gregorio saw many new innovations, the clock on the bell tower, the lighting system to acetylene and the new cemetery.

Social struggles had begun at this time. Don Giacomo Vitale was in the favor of the peasants in the same Town Council where Arturo Lombardi impersonated the rising Fascism. Meanwhile the old gentlemen, like Achille Caso, could do nothing but step aside.

In 1928 the road for vehicular traffic was completed and opened. It connected the village to Piedimonte. The first automobile arrived. The mayor Mariano Costantini too arrives. Every saturday the secretary of the Fascist Party assembles the young fascist (balilla) in the public square. Life was peaceful, even if sometime there was a punch up. At time of the workers celebration Marcellino Fattore, nicknamed Marrocco, was carried to the barracks for safety. There was great festivity in 1930 when in the village Prince Umberto di Savoia: arrived: on a convertible car he passed the public square and paused to look at an unexpected military parade down in the Padule, where the tennis courts are today.

XX CENTURY

In the old Congrega church Marcellino De Lellis played the organ. But in the night of November 2 all the people stay in house, because the deceased people of the village went in a procession from the Church to the new cemetery that had just been constructed, the present one.

Theatre shows were held in the public square, where the Baroness Amelia Del Giudice laughed heartily at sketches of Vincenzo Cordi, Ugo Caso, Giovangiuseppe Bojano, Giacomo Fattore and of the others that recited the texts of Luigi Ciccarelli, nicknamed Bandone, a poet of the Matese. Some villagers stay together to form the band. The teacher came once a week with any weather. Bernabei played the cymbals and indeed cursed, while the tuba of Vecchione was resounding until not long ago.

Then the war burst forth, the men left and many were dispersed to Russia or to the Mediterranean. In 1943 the Germans arrived and they camped in the garden of the present Hotel Mount Miletto. The fear cut through the air. The house of Beniamino Gianfrancesco on Elci street was set afire because he had protected the English.
When a German airplane fell on Raspato, the Nazis carried the corpses of the seven soldiers to Villa Ginevra and they put up a stake of honor. The people of San Gregorio, with a mixture of fear and admiration, watched those blond and haughty young men. Sparalampi, an original type, is the only one that is not found nowhere. It is said that he has killed the airplane with an old shot-gun (ribotto).

But the true fear arrived with the Americans, who from Alife came raining down with cannon shots at Santa Croce. The young boys of San Gregorio called to them, saying that the road was free, in as much as the Germans had already withdrawn. The soldiers ceased firing. They then went in the village and put the tents in the beautiful Park Luisa. They seek the young ladies for an hour of love, and when they get drunk during the night, the villagers plunder tinned food and cigarettes.

AFTER THE II WORLD WAR AND TOURISM

As God wished the war passed. It was the time of rebirth, the time of don Pasquale Panella, Vincenzino Ferritto, Raffaele Stocchetti and Senator Don Giovannino Caso. The Park Luisa was opened and the hotels are built. There was talk of tourists and country people. The donkeys give way at the Ape three gears. In the bar of Luigino Boiano, the first television set arrived. Finally, between a fizzy drink and the TV quiz “Lascia or Raddoppia” it feels itself modern.

The true tourist boom was in 1950s, with the Local Tourist Association composed by few young people of the village who were guided by the communal secretary Theodoro Mezzullo. He was councilman of the Agency of Tourism in Caserta and also Consul of the Italian Touring Club. Evening dances were held at Villa Ginevra with Nino Taranto and Gloria Christian. There was a competition for the election of Miss Matese. The art exhibitions of paintings and the competitions for novel and poetry writing all remain memorable. The Foreign Circle was moved to the pretty wood Chalet, in that Town Park that the old people still call Padule. The village even changed its name, becoming San Gregorio “Matese”. Soon Castello and Piedimonte also added Matese to their names.

The old boarding house Pensa became Hotel Mount Miletto. The inn of Gigina Pignataro became Hotel Villa Maria. The entrepreneur Angelone constructed new hotels. San Gregorio saw an elite tourism, the “Small Switzerland” it was called in the newspapers. More assiduous vacationers constructed their own villas, Villa Giulia, Villa Caterino, Villa Caniggia, Villa Rosalba and Villa Coccia. The village had expanded: on one side the ring road, from the other the Parco Correra.

But the social groups did not change. Shepherds and villagers, as 100 years before, faced the Town elections. But in the “owner and under” play, in one bar or in the other, they all are equal. Yesterday is like today. Like always.

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