Avigliano (Avigliàne in the Lucanian dialect) is an Italian municipality which, by a decree dated 27 December 1991 signed by the President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, was granted the heraldic title of ‘City’.
Origins of the name
The place name is thought to derive from avis locum (“bird’s place”), a name said to have been given by some Eastern sailors, or by locum avellani (“place of the hazelnuts”).
It has been suggested that a fundus existed in the area between the end of the Republican era and the beginning of the Imperial era; under Trajan, a ‘fundus Avillanus’ or ‘Avilius’ is mentioned, whilst subsequently a funerary inscription dedicated to a ‘Villiana’ has led to the assumption that the settlement took its name from this family.
History
The Middle Ages
The earliest archaeological finds and documents providing definitive evidence of Avigliano’s existence date back to the early Middle Ages.
The first document in which the town is mentioned dates from 13 November 1127, during the Norman period[10]. On 18 July 1137, the Fifth Council of Melfi was held in Lagopesole, a hamlet of Avigliano, during which Pope Innocent II lifted the excommunication of the monks of Montecassino, supporters of the antipope Anacletus II. During the council, Emperor Lothair III also found hospitality here; his forces had joined those of the Pope to quell a revolt in Bari.
In the following century, Frederick II of Swabia decided to build a castle at Lagopesole, to be used as a summer residence and for falconry. In 1290, the first Dominican friary in Basilicata was built there.
The 16th and 17th Centuries
Avigliano had been linked to the fiefdom of Melfi, ruled by the Caracciolo family. In the 16th century, it was granted university status within the Kingdom, and the powers of the feudal lords were curtailed by an agreement drawn up in 1579. In 1612, the fiefdom of Avigliano passed to the Doria family.
In 1694, a famine struck following a prolonged drought; in the earthquake of 8 September in Avigliano, around twenty houses were destroyed and the baronial palace and the mother church were seriously damaged, though there were no fatalities.
The people vowed to build a votive chapel to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel which had spared it from further damage. Two years later, in fact, the ecclesiastical chapter of Avigliano began construction of the chapel on the Montagnola, which came to be known as Monte Carmine.
The 18th and 19th centuries
In 1799, nobles, commoners and members of the clergy supported the Neapolitan Republic, and the Tree of Liberty was planted there on 19 January, even before French troops entered Naples.
The people of Avigliana took part in the uprisings of 1820 and 1848, and subsequently in the unification uprisings of 1860. Following Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily, the Lucanian Revolutionary Committee was established in Corleto in May 1860. The 124 municipalities of Basilicata were divided into 10 sub-centres of the uprising.
In Avigliano, the local troops were commanded by the priest Nicola Mancusi. With the so-called Lucanian uprising, the region was liberated from the Bourbons even before Garibaldi’s arrival: Mancusi subsequently assembled a column of 700 armed men from Avigliano, joining forces with troops from the south, and accompanied the general as far as Naples.
With the phenomenon of the banditry, In the countryside and woods of Lagopesole, a hamlet of Avigliano, the first and most important groups emerged, led by Carmine Crocco of Rionero in Vulture and by Giuseppe Nicola Summa, better known as Ninco Nanco, a native of Avigliano. However, in Avigliano, the peasants and artisans joined forces with the bourgeoisie, preventing Crocco’s band from entering the town in 1861. In the months that followed, after suffering a number of defeats, on 19 November 1861 Crocco – with his bands decimated by casualties, disease, the cold and desertions – decided to attack Avigliano despite José Borjes’s declared opposition. Upon reaching the town, where the population was armed and ready to defend itself, the forces commanded by Crocco attacked but failed to breach the defences. Given the losses sustained and the obvious impossibility of achieving success, Crocco sounded the retreat and took refuge once again in Lagopesole. The Provincial Council of Basilicata, on 11 January 1862, in recognising the heroic resistance of Avigliano, declared:
Honoured Citizens of the Fatherland… including the citizens of Avigliano… who, with great courage and patriotism, were able to defend the walls of their forefathers.
Arch in the square
Avigliano was also affected by emigration: between 1884 and 1913 alone, 9,000 people left the town to seek their fortune in the United States.
The 20th century
During the First World War, soldiers from Avigliana were sent to fight in the Karst.
In 1926, a monument dedicated to Emanuele Gianturco, a lawyer and politician born in Avigliano, was unveiled in the main square. Thanks to contributions from Avigliano natives who had emigrated to the United States, a monument to the Fallen of Southern Italy was also unveiled on 25 May 1930, and, during the same ceremony, the railway line between Avigliano town and Avigliano Scalo was also opened. This line, built by the Società Mediterranea per le Linee Ferroviarie Calabro-Lucane, connected Avigliano to the Potenza–Foggia railway line and to the line towards Bari.
In 1935, with the completion of the independent section between Avigliano Scalo and Potenza Inferiore, the railway line gained a direct link to the city of Potenza. Also in 1935, the Juvenile Detention Centre, under the Ministry of Justice, and the primary school building – which was later named after Silvio Spaventa Filippi – were built.
Avigliano became a place of confinement for many Jews and political prisoners of anti-fascist persuasion.
