RIPALIMOSANI
By Renato Lalli
From Il Gazzettino, Year 44, Second Edition, No.1-2, 1998
{Notes added to translation are in brackets. See the end of this article for a list of the writers quoted here.] Charles Carome, December 21, 1998.
Story of a people an inheritance to preserve and to value. "This land is situated," writes Longano in reference to Ripalimosani, "in a valley with a view to the East of a mile, less to the West, and much less to the South."
The first reports on Ripalimosani trace back to 1039; they are found in a document that is concerned with the grant of privileges on the part of the Lombard princes Landolfo and Pandolfo [the Lombards were a Germanic tribe that conquered southern Italy after the fall of Rome] to the people of the territory of Montagano [an older town 10 miles north of Ripalimosani] in which they defined the boundaries.
It begins "at location Sancti Catelli where it borders the territory of Ripae town, Matrice, and Montes Agani"; it is a site between Montagano and Ripalimosani in which, Minadeo agrees, there must have been a church dedicated to Saint Cataldo. He cites the fountain of Pesclonis that Mancini translates to Pesclone (Pesquole for the Ripesi), a rural location toward the Biferno River. He cites Covatta, which was still inhabited in the XVI century, where they recorded 34 hearths.
At the center of the life in Ripalimosani there was always the castle or palace. A place that still today is called Piedicastello [foot-of-the-castle], it makes one think of the existence in this place of an ancient castle. Tirabasso affirms it as he testifies to the presence in his time (1930) of ancient ruins, but Minadeo is instead of the opinion that the name is derived from the location at the foot of the overhanging castle.
There were three gates. One of these the main one called the Great Gate was knocked down to form the piazza [the town square] which is still called The Gate. There was a tower constructed by the citizens for defense. A baron, one reads in the reports of the disputes between the town and the feudal lord, appropriated the tower and there adapted it for his residence. Thus was born the actual palace. "Who is able to oppose then," one reads in the Reports, "the baron who sacrilegiously through a title was called the Lord?"
The town claimed the palace constructed on the tower and also demanded that they erase all the inscriptions and the coats of arms that the feudal lord had illegally put on the gate and in the church in order to eliminate "the residues of tyranny."
The castle was transformed, similar to what happened at Campobasso [the province capital city 5 miles from Ripalimosani], for example, with the Montfort castle, a noble residence. They became places of defense and a civil architecture developed. Examples of it are the castles of Gambatesa and Venafro with the walls richly frescoed. The palace of Ripalimosani lived in moments of splendor in the 17th century with the Riccardo family. Rooms and halls were covered with refined, valuable tapestries, portrait paintings of Riccardo ancestors, of popes and captains, of furniture, cabinets, written documents, libraries of great worth.
To the Riccardo was bequeathed also the copy of the Sacred Shroud that is jealously preserved at Ripalimosani. It is a perfect copy, strictly faithful to the original [the Shroud of Turin], writes Father Minadeo. It was ordered to be painted at Turin by Carlos Emanuale I. The shroud arrived at Ripalimosani as a gift made to the Riccardo feudal lords at Ripalimosani from Julius Cesare Riccardo, Papal Nuncio at Turin to whom it was first given.
"The natives", that is, the citizens of Ripalimosani, Longano writes, "are hard working and industrious with a unique history of rope-making that feeds almost a third of its extensive population. "It flourishes there," continues Longano, "the art of rope-making, and they sell it not only in the province, but send it east to the province of Bari and north to the to the city of Aquila. The sense of toil animates all. Money circulates in great abundance. In this land there is found the paper of Celario, the sweets of Sulmona, the bread of Aquila, the oil of Montazzolo, the eel of Lesina, the eel of Pantano, the pasta of Foggia, the provolone of Gravina, the tonic water of Bari, the parsnips of Altamura, the wall posters of Canosa, and the dita of Bitonto. In Ripalimosani one wallows perpetually in the intemperance of gluttony; few of these individuals are able to pass the age of sixty years.
Longano also cites Ripalimosani, along with Frosolone and Campobasso, for work with steel [cutlery]. It has the most goods wagons, many local governors, and the clergy applies itself studiously to the morals of the Ciottola Canon of Campobasso.
The women do little fieldwork. They are attached to the work of wool [weaving], another example of stable and extensive industry. There all get married, with dowry or without, straight or humpbacked, with one eye or two, and perhaps at fifteen years old. The natives, he makes clear, "are almost all quick of mind, sharp and sparkling."
Activity was fostered by the cattle track [an ancient pathway for herding animals across the region] which passed from the land of Rionero, through the Roca Sicura, and across Torello, Castropignano, and San Stefano. It reached Ripalimosani and went on toward Mota and Tavoliere.
But all was not well at Ripa. Longano brands a greedy middle class that, preoccupied with their own interests, plundered the revenue of the town [comune] and that of the Chapels or mountains of Mercy or Mountains of grain which, he says, belonged to the poor. [Apparently these "mountains" were large quantities of grain stored by the town and the church to feed the poor in case of crop failure. And for this pillage, Longano explicitly cites the case of Ripalimosani. Here we are indeed able to find the reason for the Day of 99 [1799].
Ripalimosani also had violent feudal landholders and oppressors. Longano is firm and inflexible in the condemnation of feudalism. "The barons authority," he says, "is harmful to the people, to the state, to the sovereign. It degrades our species."
One episode is significant. In 1560 from the monastery in which there was the Order of the Friars Minor of the Observance [Franciscan monks] comes a claim against the Spanish Viceroy of Naples [southern Italy was under Spanish domination]. The friars denounce the lord "John Antonio de Mastrojudice, lord of said land [Ripalimosani]" for having "forcefully dispossessed a priest [who had been the minister of the monastic province of St. Angelo] of the habit he was wearing, and held him thus deformed and dispossessed in his castle until the time that he and his followers made a farce with such habit throughout the land."
This "farce" was a performance a masquerade through the town - organized by the feudal lord and the Friars friends. One of the protagonists dressed himself as a Franciscan. The performance also required a mule. When the monks refused to supply the mule, the feudal lord "about 3:00 A.M., while the friars slept, scaled the walls armed with weapons. And the lord gave a blow to the head of one of the friars and produced a fracture."
The monastery in this story was built in the 13th century. The monastery began with the title of Holy Mary of the Angels. It took the name of St Peter Celestino after the canonization of Pope Celestino who was a monk there. "In Ripa of Limosano," writes Ciarlanti, historian of the 17th century, "the Celestini Fathers had a site with the name of Saint Peter Celestino, and though it was not then very large, they gave it to the Franciscans; some Fathers of renowned goodness have lived there in particular, the blessed Alexander of the northern land of Ripa. He was a man of true perfection, was formidable to demons, and with his most ardent orations expelled and put to flight their evil forces. He was buried there and remains greatly venerated.
The monastery always had prestige. It was honored as the provincial capital of the Franscicans. With the Riformati [another religious order], who were the successors to the Franciscans the monastery became a place of professorship and the site of a rich library.
In the 18th century the parochial school dedicated to Holy Mary of the Assumption, which is very ancient perhaps built in the initial founding of the town went through a major reconstruction, as has been the case in many towns in Molise in order to cope with the needs of the faithful.
Also during the 18th century there was a growing anti-feudal feeling and the recognition of the need for a radical renewal of the antiquated structure that was opposing every possibility of growth and progress. The Ripesi were always active in the battle for renewing their society. A more human, more just version of society, and a concern for the weakest, animates Longano, DeLuca, and Giampaolo [prominent citizens of Ripalimosani]. Francisco Longano, always bearing ecclesiastical censure, put at the heart of his philosophical reflections man and his search for happiness. He took an interest in the problems of society, especially in those of a stunted and backward agriculture. He supported the necessity of improving methods and implements of cultivation in order to adapt farming to the nature of the soil and climatic conditions. He considered fundamental the precariousness of the work of the farmers. He echoed Luca Nicola De Luca for whom "the first that have right to the land are those who wash the soil with their sweat.
DeLuca was also a poet with a subtle irony that recalled Parini and perhaps even Paeseroni. He lashed those who, coming back to the town after studies in Naples, did not deem worthy of a glance the person who continues "to talk of rural cures."
After the grave 1805 earthquake damage in Ripalimosani, Paolo Nicola Giampaolo, " from the bosom of a province scourged by the hand of God, but perhaps more by the whip of man," raised his voice; "having at heart the public good," he denounced the mistaken systems on which the economy was based primarily the centralization of ownership in a few hands. Giampaolo was active in the French period and, as councilor of state and commissioner of crown property in Salento in the two Pricipalities, wrote a memoir on the evils of agriculture in the south, which was epitomized by the extensive culture of grain and the absenteeism of landlords. This was also later pointed out by the geographer Marinelli, from Campobasso, after the LUnita [Unity]. One can say of Giampaolo, as was said of Manzoni, that he brought back the ideas of liberty and brotherhood of the Enlightenment in relation to the Gospels. "You should learn, you who reign." He says in one homily, "or you who judge the country with a harsh judgment. God threatens governments when they are not founded on justice and truth."
There was another Giampaolo Francesco, Bishop of Capeccio and Vallo in Lucania who, while in Larino, spoke of Italy. He called to mind the grandeur of Italy. He reorganized the Seminary of Larino. In 1848 he explained the Constitution to the people of Ripalimosani. For this he was prosecuted.
Ripalimosani, one of the most populous towns of Molise, continues to exist in the nineteenth century, as Girardi says. From 1807 to 1811 it was the capital of the circondario [similar to a township], in 1819 the Sannitica Consolare [a section of a national highway] arrived at Campobasso from Naples and reached the Tavern of the Cortile [a local inn]. In 1820 a contract was agreed to for extending the road toward Campolieto. In 1828 the first public service was started by coach. This all gave a start to the construction of other roads and public works to help the needs of the poor. It gave stimulus to agriculture, began the introduction of artificial grass-lands [probably crops from other countries], and seeds of cotton were requested from the Economics Association to test its cultivation.
Luigi Marinelli, mayor, volunteered to fight against the Austrians, and later built an arcade the "Erkate" to begin a covered marketplace.
To conclude this quick review of events and men of Ripa, one can say that there is a legacy to preserve, including a religious inheritance for example, the themes of the Hymns of Jacopone from Todi. Perhaps a center of studies on Ripa might combine with a revival of the studies at the monastery.
Permit me to mention one other Ripesi Michele Camposarcuno who has worked hard for the institutions of the Molise region. The town of Ripa will soon dedicate a street to his name.
Renato Lalli
Some of the writers quoted in this article:
Longano, Abbot Francesco: Journey Through The Rural Area of Molise, 1788
Mancini, Antonio : Ripalimosani Records and Notes of Peasant History, 1939
Marinelli, Nicola: Ripalimosani and Its Feudal Castle
Minadeo, Nicolas M. :The Holy Shroud and An Authentic Copy, 1900
Tirabaso, Angelo: Brief Monograph On Ripalimosani, 1930