Ferrara in Savignano Irpino

About seven kilometres from the centre of Savignano Irpino, between the gypsum ridge of Monte Castello and the Difesa plateau, lies the ancient site of Ferrara. It was a strategic point between the Cervaro valley, Apulia and the Campanian plain, inhabited since prehistory: Neolithic villages of the Guadone culture stood on Monte Castello, and pottery from the Bronze Age and the 8th–7th centuries BC has been found.On the Difesa plateau a Roman-era farm has emerged, with pottery, loom weights and a coin bearing the effigy of Janus. In the early Middle Ages the hill was fortified as the Castrum Ferrariae, inhabited between the 10th and 15th centuries under Norman lords and later the Guevara. We are struck by its trajectory: by 1526 it was already an uninhabited fief. Today the plateau hosts wind turbines.