In southern Italy, the territories of the provinces of Salerno and Potenza are particularly rich in abandoned villages and ghost towns.
It is difficult to trace a route that can connect all these small villages. The lack of direct road connections would lengthen travel times so much that it would take at least 15 days to make a fairly complete tour of the territory. Accommodation is also not always easy. The lack of mass tourism has not favored the creation of facilities, but there is always some Motel along the road where you can sleep. It is instead very easy to find inns and trattorias where you can eat “homemade” cuisine at really affordable prices.
However, let’s try to trace an itinerary trying to touch the most interesting locations.
Abandoned Villages Campania
Roscigno
Starting from Salerno, follow the state road no. 18, heading south and then no. 166, until Roscigno. The village is located at 570 meters high on a hill overlooking the valley of the Ripiti stream, a tributary of the Calore river in the Salerno area. Roscigno has recently been included in the World Heritage site protected by UNESCO, and it is now divided into two villages: one ancient, almost completely abandoned due to a landslide, and a new one higher up, recently built in a safer area.
The ancient village of Roscigno, which has agro-pastoral origins, probably dates back to the 1300s, and its original core was much lower. Following the progressive landslides, the inhabitants were forced to move higher and higher until reaching the current plateau in the 1700s. The last houses built in the old village date back to the beginning of this century. Then the slow and definitive transfer of the village to the current location was decided, in a safe position chosen by the Civil Engineering, a few kilometers higher up.
Old Sacco
Just a few kilometers from Roscigno is Old Sacco, built on the ridge of Mount Motola. The village overlooks the deep gorge of the Sammaro stream, which divides the municipality of Sacco from that of Roscigno. It is a cluster of early medieval origins in a practically inaccessible area, featuring traces of religious and fortified buildings probably dating back to the 1200s, almost certainly abandoned due to their difficult location.
At this point, there are two alternatives: either continue inland, or proceed toward the sea. Let’s go inland. Taking state road no. 166, upon arrival at Atena Lucana, you will get onto the Autostrada del Sole heading north until Sicignano degli Alburni. Continuing towards Potenza, at the exit of Buccino there is the road to Romagnano al Monte. We are north of the Alburni mountains, on the border between Campania and Basilicata.
Romagnano al Monte
Romagnano al Monte, 641 m above sea level, is perched on a rocky spur overlooking the deep ravine of the Valle del fiume Bianco. The area is characterized by mountainous reliefs with steep walls on cliffs. The village was completely abandoned after the 1980 earthquake, while in the 1960s it had more than 600 inhabitants. Of medieval origin, Romagnano al Monte experienced a history very similar to that of other modest mountainous settlements with a pastoral regime, a history linked to the events of feudal properties. At the top of the village are the remains of a wall enclosure of the baronial castle, while in the center, in Piazza SS Rosario, there is the Town Hall and the eighteenth-century church of Madonna del Rosario. After the earthquake, the inhabitants moved to a tent camp (Romagnano Nuovo) about 1 km from Buccino, and currently reside there, after receiving from the State small plots of land free of charge proportional to the properties they had in the old village. Only 8 years before the earthquake, the aqueduct reached Romagnano.
Returning to the highway and after passing Potenza, take state road no. 407 Basentana which crosses the Lucanian valleys adjacent to the extreme southern Campania.
There, the same stories of feudal exploitation (the same barons, Sanseverino, Morra, Carafa, etc., who ruled them) and emigration, along with certainly a very hostile nature, characterized by valleys and steep ravines, deep gullies, and barren, arid hills, have made life difficult for the inhabitants, who were eventually forced to leave their homes.
San Severino di Centola
If from Roscigno one decides instead to take the seaside route, you must return to state road no. 18. After passing through Paestum and its Temple area, you reach Vallo della Lucania. A few more kilometers and you will take state road no. 447 towards Palinuro.
In this extreme strip of the Cilento coast there is San Severino di Centola, another small abandoned village. The town is located on a rocky ridge overlooking the Mingardo River gorge. The spectacular landscape enjoyed from this privileged vantage point is a good reason for a walk to the village; the ruins of Molpa castle, which legend says was abandoned after the sack by Saracen pirates, can be glimpsed along the road leading to the uninhabited village.
Here the causes of abandonment are to be found in economic rather than geological reasons. The particular position of the village, perched on the cliff, caused the slow and constant decrease in the number of inhabitants over the centuries, until the economy of the small village, mainly based on agricultural production, was brought to its knees in the 1960s. The exodus of the remaining population, attracted by livelier coastal locations, was completed about fifteen years ago and San Severino is currently inhabited by only one person, an artist and foreigner.
Other abandoned villages in Campania
Scattered throughout the Salerno area there are numerous abandoned farmhouses (such as Case di San Giovanni a Punta Tresino in the municipality of S.Maria di Castellabate, Tuoro and Cavalli near Roccadaspide, San Nicola di Centola near Palinuro, Sorbo near Salerno), which testify to the widespread network of ancient self-sufficient agricultural and pastoral communities subjected to the feudal system. Generally, the farmhouses are located in areas of difficult access and, with the end of large estates, gradually lost their function and were therefore abandoned.
The feelings that unite all now deserted places are of deep melancholy but also great curiosity. There are many causes for the abandonment of a settlement: in some villages the exodus is total, in others only the historic center is emptied, for reasons that must be identified case by case.
Abandoned villages in Basilicata
In Basilicata, along the valleys of the Basento and Agri rivers, there are completely abandoned villages:
Old Campomaggiore
Old Campomaggiore 40 km from Potenza, not far from the state road 407 Basentana, is located on a high plateau, on the northern side of the Lucanian Dolomites, one of the most extraordinary rock landscapes in Italy, with very high ridges and deep valleys and gorges. The village already existed in the Swabian age, but its history is marked by abandonments: one in the 17th century and a second in 1885 when a landslide forced the inhabitants to leave the village and build a new one 3 km away. Today you can visit the almost ghostly ruins of the ancient village.
Craco
Craco, on the other hand, is in the province of Matera and is spectacularly perched on a hill. Although it is in better condition than Campomaggiore, it is completely abandoned and is rapidly deteriorating. The cause of the abandonment is probably a large landslide that endangered the settlement.
These homogeneous and thematic routes are linked to a recovery effort, where possible, of ancient building structures and historical and artistic testimonies of a lesser-known Italy, less fortunate but certainly not poor in culture.
They have often survived over the years thanks to their secure position on mountain ridges and because they are far from major commercial and military routes. Then their difficult history, often marked by centuries of feudal exploitation, was definitively interrupted by traumatic events.
Certainly emigration, since the post-war period, has dealt a heavy blow to small rural centers, largely depopulating them, but also a hostile nature characterized by landslides and ground slips has contributed to the degradation of old dilapidated houses; then earthquakes, especially the last one in 1980, determined the complete abandonment of the settlements.
The causes of depopulation vary from village to village, although all stories are similar. In the province of Salerno, on the Alburni mountains, among caves and woods, in a harsh and treacherous territory, many villages have lived for years with unstable soil. The sandstone terrain is very friable, and erosion manifests in vast areas with characteristic gullies. Additionally, the numerous landslides, accelerated by rainwater infiltrating the dense network of karst conduits, contribute to soil slips. The caves and the large number of foothill springs certainly do not help to stabilize the soil.
