Armonie e ritmi. Regione Molise

In 66 BC, Cicero was one of the first people to promote Molise's oil. In a passionate speech in defence of Cluentius, a man from Larino, he also praised the goodness, aroma and delicacy of the oil produced in the area from autochthonous plants that have remained unchanged over the centuries. Today, lovingly tended, they still stand with their thick foliage all over the territory. It is no understatement to say that they are the emblem of farm food production in the region, the physical structure of which (mountains, hills and plains) allows the cultivation and transformation of a variety of naturally organic products, thanks to the unspoilt environment and the still virgin terrains. On the heights there are immense meadows, always green even in midsummer, where herds of cattle, sheep and goats and horses graze freely. In August, these same animals are the protagonists of the spectacular "Rodeo Pentro", held in the "Pantano" (Marsh) of Montenero Valcocchiara. Horses are also our patient companions on excursions along the sheep tracks, the old roads of the migrant flocks that still preserve their natural beauty while reminding us of an aspect of farming history. Along the sheep tracks, which were the motorways of the past, more than 100 metres wide, are fields of spelt, the wheat of the Samnite warriors, of durum wheat, barley, maize and, recently, sunflowers. Scattered more or less everywhere are small and large vineyards, especially in lower Molise where two cooperatives have been formed which collect their members' grapes and transform them into DOC wines which are becoming well known in the world; likewise, the wines sold with the labels of the emerging private wine cellars are enjoying more and more success. Vintners have rediscovered "tintilia", an old vine species from the hills around Campobasso and are using it to produce a wine which, according to experts, is superior to even the most famous Italian brands. Tomato growing is increasingly widespread in lower Molise, a large part of the crop being sent to the preserving factory at Guglionesi which exports cans of peeled tomatoes of guaranteed excellent quality. The preserved pork products made in upper Molise are also unique, of fine quality: "soppressa" and sausages, processed and dried in special environments, prepared with loving care by old family-run businesses, according to an ancient tradition. Other traditional specialities are the delicious red "ventricina" sausage from Montenero di Bisaccia and "pampanella" cheese from San Martino in Pensilis which, accompanied by strong wines, were the usual snack preferred by harvesters when, at twilight, tired from their work in the fields, they gathered by the stone threshing floor where they guided their sturdy horses round and round, crushing the sheaves with their heavy hooves. These figures and images of bygone days have been replaced by modern implements that have taken away poetry and human warmth from a country world which nevertheless preserves the culture of toil and love for its land, which is not as meagre as it once was. Some of the farms are leaders in Europe for the production of particular crops such as ornamental curly parsley for the table and exquisite vegetables of every kind and colour. A land which, in the wooded hilly areas, conceals in the subsoil a great quantity of white truffles. 50% of the national production of this precious, strong-perfumed tuber comes from Molise. Truffle seekers have multiplied in recent years. This activity also provides employment for the workshops which, especially in upper Molise and particularly at San Pietro Avellana and Carovilli, collect, sell and transform truffles, as well as boletus mushrooms which grow in plenty on the slopes of the mountain chains of the Matese and the Mainarde, the region's great and important green lung. There is sheep rearing and above all cattle rearing all over the territory, but especially in the mountain area; these farms provide the milk which is delivered to the many dairies specialised in the production of mozzarella, caciocavallo, plaits of fresh cheese and many other high quality cheeses, considered the "white gold" of Molise. Every morning, at dawn, refrigerated trucks start off from Boiano and other centres, carrying the fresh products (mozzarella, stracciata, nodini and ricotta) to the markets of the North and to Rome and its neighbourhood. The dairy industry is a driving force of the economy, the pride of the local farm food production, which can also boast a series of particular cakes. To mention but a few, the maize cakes from Campobasso and "i ceppellate" from Trivento; wafers are made at Agnone, requiring a laborious process handed down from one generation to the next. One of the basic ingredients of many dainty pastries is clover honey, still produced by many bee-keepers. It is a delicate, pure honey, obtained from the nectar of red clover, grown in Molise as fodder; another crop is spelt, which gives fine flour used for making pasta in a modern factory at Trivento. All in all, Molise has plenty to tempt you with, a Molise to be enjoyed and discovered not only for its rich natural and historic heritage, but also for its products, the fruits of a clean, healthy environment.

In the land of the Samnites
For their temples, the Samnites used to choose high sites overlooking valley panoramas, raised as high above ground as possible by means of tall podiums of smoothed and shaped blocks: places of prayer and meeting places for men, from the smallest country sanctuaries, serving the communities scattered over the countryside, such as the one at San Giovanni in Galdo, to the most important sanctuaries strategically placed along the main routes, such as the one at Campochiaro, open to the continuous flow of people going along the track. The former is a simple temple on a podium with side arcades and an enclosure of blocks of stone that marked the sacred area. Today the divinities are almost always unknown, except at Canpochiaro, where there was the sanctuary of Hercules on the slopes of the Matese, composed of a temple, arcades forming a stage setting on the mountain side, and service buildings, all enclosed by a mighty wall of polygonal blocks of stone; the sanctuary of Hercules at Campochiaro has preserved the traces of the oldest known earthquake in Molise, which occurred towards the end of the third century when the sanctuary was being built. However, the building was completed and was visited regularly until well on into the Empire. Instead, the temple discovered in the San Pietro di Cantoni district at Sepino was dedicated to a goddess. This site is still being explored, but its layout is already clear, despite the great transformations that it was subjected to when it was adapted for use as a Christian church. A bronze statuette, with a dedication engraved on its base, depicts the goddess with splendid female features, creator of life and fruitfulness. Also at Vastogiradi, at the beginning of the wide plain that lies at the of Monte Capraro, the Samnite temple shared the same destiny: a Christian church was erected on its high podium. At Pietrabbondante, the major sanctuary of the Pentri Samnites, the highest authorities of the Samnite state brought resources and craftsmen to the slopes of Monte Caraceno overlooking the vast horizons of Middle and Upper Molise, to create that architectural and artistic masterpiece that was to fulfil the function of State sanctuary. The complex formed by the temple and the theatre makes excellent use of the natural slope of the terrain: laid out on a single axis, at the bottom are the theatre and the scenic buildings, the parados, the arches, the orchestra and the cavea where the lowest steps are hewn out of the stone, some smooth, some in relief with ends in the shape of gryphons paws, while the telamons that support the cornices of the retaining walls are almost in the round. At the top, as though to mark the meetings and the community life that took place at the theatre, stands the gigantic temple on a very high podium, with a flight of stairs allowing access to the pronaos. Part of the reconstructed right wall, the remains of columns and the capitols, the tripartite cella or naos, the stone fountain, the side arcades, two of the original three altars, give a general idea of the majesty of the temple and of its layout. But even before this complex, erected at the end of the second century BC, another temple stood on this site and was sacked by Hannibal when he passed through this part of Italy. To one side, yet another temple was erected after those events and is visible today at the end of the sacred area, with the podium and the remains of the stone architectural decoration. However, the area has not yet finished revealing its hidden heritage: a great domus, complete with impluvium and peristyle, is currently coming to light in the immediate vicinity of the sanctuary. Often impervious, sometimes difficult to reach except by people who are used to mountain paths, the peaks of western and northern Molise maintain the imprints left by the oldest Samnites; they form a circuit of mighty fortifications, made up of one, two and sometimes even three walls built of great blocks of roughly hewn stone, put together without the aid of mortar on the specially cut slope of the mountain side, wherever possible making use of the natural defence offered by rocky cliffs. They were impregnable fortresses, but not completely, for during the Samnite Wars the Romans finally succeeded in breaking through the dual barrier of the double tier of fortification of Sepino (Terravecchia), massacring men and destroying everything in their path in 293 BC, even before than, in 305 BC, they had managed to take possession of the fortress at Bojano. Terravecchia at Sepino, Monte Saraceno at Cercemaggiore, Monte La Rocca at Vinchiaturo, La Montagnola at Frosolone, Civitavecchia at Duronia, Monte Ferrante at Carovilli, Monte Caraceno at Pietrabbondante, Castelromano at Isernia, Monte San Paolo at Colli al Volturno, are only some of these places in whose medieval and modern names it is difficult to recognise the original names that we know from historical sources: Cominium, Duronia, Aquilonia, the latter being identified by some scholars as the Samnite centre currently being excavated at Monte Vairano near Campobasso: walls of well tooled blocks erected in the fourth century BC, enclosing public and private buildings rationally distributed on either side of the streets that led into the centre from the three gates. When Rome finally extended her dominions in this part of Italy, the mountains gave way to the valleys and the administrative organisation focussed on the urban areas which were also political, economic and cultural centres. The "municipiums" were created. In the town of Venafro, the modern centre has been superimposed on the old one, concealing it, but the signs of a flourishing town, rich and busy, crop up here and there: the slopes of Monte S. Croce were aptly exploited to house the cavea of the grand theatre and its adjoining buildings, while the ring-shaped circuit of the cavea of the amphitheatre is faithfully echoed in the continuous sequence of country cottages that have been built on its site, over time. It is equally difficult to trace the urban lines of the town of Isernia, first a colony according to Latin law and then a municipium; they coincide with the medieval and modern buildings in the old town centre, from the temple of the third century BC under the cathedral to the sacred structures of Caesar's time, partly identified in the courtyard of the bishop's palace, to the remains of masonry made of huge square-cut blocks - the walls of the latiln colony - that appear here and there at the sides of the streets and in the walls that still mark the limit of the old town centre today. Much later, in the Carolingian period, a grandiose abbey unden Benedictine rule was to be built in the area of the sources of the Volturno. The Roman municipium of Saepinum (Sepino - Altilia) was laid out, from the point of view of town planning, in the time of Augustus on the same spot in which a large settlement had developed in a previous period, along the track which also in the new urban arrangement still crossed the town from one side to the other. The whole course of the town walls can be followed, with the articulation of the towers and the four monumental gates: the gate known as the "Porta Bojano" is almost entirely visible, with its round arch, the head of Hercules on the keystone, the engraved dedication commemorating the princes of the emperor's family (Tiberius and Drusus) as promoters and financers of the work, and the two figures in relief representing barbarian prisoners at the top on the sides. The uninterrupted series of shops, originally preceded by arcades, lie along the decumanus; near the wide space of the forum were the most important public buildings: the macellum, the basilica, the curia and the comitium, the temples, honorary monuments and fountains. On the edge of the town, right against the walls, is the semicircular theatre; outside the walls, on the sides of the road, are the funerary monuments, the most prominent being the tombs of the most important personalities: the drum-shaped mausoleum with an embattled top containing the remains of Caius Ennius Marsus in the area outside the Benevento Gate, the one in the shape of a parallelepiped of Publius Numisus Ligus, by the side of the road outside the Bojano Gate. Of the town of Larino, which in his oration Pro Cluentio Cicero presents as a flourishing town in which there was a struggle between rival factions of old and new nobility hungry for power and money, the excavations carried out so far have partly revealed the town centre in an extensive chronological urban arrangement. The amphitheatre, the largest public building of antiquity found so far in Molise, can now be traced completely, even though it has been systematically despoiled almost up until the threshold of our own age; in some sectors of the town, public and private buildings can be seen which show, alongside more simple flooring, black and white and polychrome mosaics adorning impluviums and halls with apses, and enhancing rich noble houses. Three of these splendid mosaics which were removed from their original site during the last century can be seen in the Palazzo Ducale, in the medieval town centre of Larino: the mosaics of the She-Wolf, the Lion and the Birds are works of great artistic value produced by highly skilled craftsmen between the end of the second and the beginning of the third century AD. The part of Molise closest to the Adriatic coast, where the mountains give way to wooded crags and green hills dotted with olive trees and marked by rows of fines, is the most fertile in the region. Here it is not uncommon to find the architectural signs of those villae rusticae - farms - that were founded in pre-Roman times and that, in the first centuries of the empire, marked with their presence and with the activities rationally organised there, the farming landscape - and the economy - between the Fortore and the Trigno. Those large farms, based on slave labour, were linked to the great estates of the most prominent people in the towns. They produced especially wine and oil, fine quality products to supply the town markets and areas even quite far away. Alongside the farming premises there were generally also a series of facilities reserved for the master's use, sometimes with splendid mosaics as in the villa of S. Maria di Canneto at Roccavivara, on the river Trigno; here we can clearly see the rustic part in its many articulations, with the torcular (the press), the lacus (the tank for collecting the pressing liquid), the cella (the cellar) with dozens of dolia (terracotta vats). Another rural settlement can be seen at San Giacomo degli Schiavoni, nearer the coast, where as well as large-scale farming there were craft activities that required large quantities of water, as may be deduced from the presence of a complex hydraulic system with underground tanks and cisterns, pipes and channels. The most recent discovery in this field is, instead, quite small: the rustic villa found at San Giuliano di Puglia during work for the construction of prefabricated houses for the people made homeless by the disastrous earthquake of 31 October 2002. The room that held the press and the vat can be clearly seen, sunk into the ground, as was common practice to ensure that the liquid remained at constant temperature.

Blue Flag
Unfortunate the man - and above all the woman - who has never seen the sunset at Termoli! We don't know who first spoke those words. Perhaps Diomedes, Homer's mythical hero who, after the fire of Troy, rejected by his Argos, wandered over land and sea until he ended his days in the Diomedeian Islands (now the Tremiti). Or perhaps Plato who, according to an old tradition, landed at Termoli during one of his voyages and wrote here a dialogue on ideas. Or perhaps Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus, who sailed from Termoli to exile in the Tremiti Islands to atone for her scandalous love affair with Ovid, who in turn was banished to Tomis, on the distant Black Sea. Or a Byzantine nobleman, or a Longobard duke, or the Norman count Robert of Loritello, who had his palace at Termoli. Or Tancredi of Altavilla, who held an assembly of Norman noblemen at Termoli, to resist in vain the advance of Henry VI, son of Barbarossa. Or perhaps the person enchanted by the beauty of Termoli's sunset, on the bastions of the castle, was the emperor Frederick II, with his son Manfred, fair-haired and handsome, and his son Enzo, with his gentle, poetic soul. We don't know, nor shall we ever know. But certainly, in Termoli's long history, popes and emperors, kings and queens, bishops and abbots, crusaders and pilgrims, soldiers and adventurers, merchants and migrating shepherds, monks and brigands, walking along the high ramparts of the old seaside town, have been struck by an enchanting sunset. Today Termoli offers visitors all the attractions of a pleasant seaside town. Together with Campomarino, a small town of Albanian ethnic origin, it is the only important centre on Molise's short coast, with beaches of golden sand, long stretches of which are protected by pine woods and Mediterranean maquis. But Termoli is especially rich in history and to know it you must look at the stones of the old town. They speak to us of the life of the fishermen and of the work of the governors who in 1203 signed a commercial contract with the old republic of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). The stones tell us of the rich merchants from Amalfi who operated in Termoli, attending to their economic interests between the two shores of the Adriatic, and who embellished the town with fine buildings and churches, such as the fine Romanesque cathedral, in which can be recognised the hand of the master sculptor, Alfano da Termoli, who carved the pulpit in the church of San Giovanni del Toro at Ravello and signed the ciborium of the cathedral in Bari ("Alfanus civis me sculpsit Termolanus"). And the stones of the cathedral, with the signs of fire and devastation still visible, also tell us of the attack by the ruffianly crews of Pialì Pasha, who in 1566 laid waste many coastal centres on the Adriatic with his fleet. Termoli Cathedral welcomes you with the silence of its white nave and shows you the remains of Saint Basso, patron of the town, but above all it contains one of the most precious relics for the whole of Christianity, the body of St. Timothy, the favourite pupil of St. Paul. The narrow streets of the old town start off from the cathedral and head towards the sea and to the gate of the belvedere, protected by an Aragonese tower. Lining the streets are the old white cottages of the fishermen and noble buildings that conceal silent courtyards. Here there is still the little house where Jacovitti, the famous cartoon artist, was born, as well as the birthplace of Gennaro Perrotta, the most authoritative Greek scholar of the twentieth century. If you go along the coast from Termoli, you find the watch towers for defence against Saracen raids, built by order of the viceroy Don Pedro of Toledo. Instead, if you go inland, you come to Guglionesi, from which you can look out over all the sea from Vasto to Gargano and see far off in the distance the archipelago of the Tremiti Islands. At Guglionesi there is the Longobard church of San Nicola with its fine crypt, but another crypt, no less beautiful, is to be found in the collegiate church, containing paintings with admirable colours. If you go even farther you arrive at Acquaviva Collecroci, a small town of Croat ethnic origin. Here you find the coats of arms of the Knights of Malta and, on one side of the church, read a mysterious epigraph. But towards the end of the day, the modern pilgrims who wander incessantly, almost in search of a place for their soul, like to go back to Termoli, to the bastions facing the sunset, urged by a need for love and a desire that cannot be expressed. According to a French traveller at the end of the eighteenth century, at Termoli it is nice to stay during the day, but above all at night! And a poet says that you also come to Termoli for only one sunset and for only one love.

Unspoilt charm
The mountains of Molise: the Matese and the Mainarde. A mixture of green and charm. Intact. Time and development process have not affected them in the slightest. They stand out, in their extraordinary, striking primeval beauty, dominating a still virgin territory. Still partly unexplored, they jealously guard a heritage of flora and fauna of inestimable value. In the vast woodlands that are a characteristic feature of the area, entomologists from the University of Campobasso have discovered insects that were believed to be completely extinct, but which evidently survived thanks to a natural environment that has remained unchanged for centuries. The Matese, an imposing calcareous chain of the Cretaceous period, covers an area of one thousand square kilometres and forms the natural boundary between the regions of Molise and Campania. Its highest peak is Monte Miletto (2,050 mt), known in olden times as "Mons Militum", the soldiers' mountain, because during the long Italic wars of the third century BC, the Samnites took refuge there and drove back the Romans by rolling huge rocks down from the mountain top. Covered with thick spontaneous vegetation, typical of the flora of the Apennines, the Matese is rich in hornbeam and arbutus in the low areas, Turkey oak and chestnut in the intermediate strip, and majestic beech trees on the highest slopes. There are strawberries and intensely perfumed oregano that everyone can pick, as well as boletus mushrooms, royal agaric and chanterelles that can be freely gathered from late spring till well into summer. Among the many springs is the one that forms the head waters of the river Biferno, which flows through nearly the whole region. At the top of the Matese, astride the slope bordering on Campania, is a natural lake with lots of pike and trout. Everywhere there are caves reaching into the heart of the mountain, chasms and gorges, including the wild winding gorges of the Quirino stream above the characteristic village of Guardiaregia. Many animals rove in their natural state in these surroundings, in particular the Molise boar which, unlike other species, weighs well over one hundred kilos. At the foot of Monte Miletto, the ski resort of "Campitello Matese" is only two hours' drive from Rome, Naples and Bari. Founded between the Sixties and the Seventies following the intuition and persistence of the then Chairman of the Molise Tourist Board Franco Ciampitti, it has become the pride and joy of winter tourism in the region. There are seven lift systems, including modern ski lifts and chair lifts, and more than ten ski runs, all interconnected, with a total of 40 kilometres for downhill skiing and 10 for cross-country skiing. Five comfortable hotels are able to accommodate about a thousand skiers, but as many as 4,000 beds are available thanks to the seven residential complexes built near the ski areas. Skiing at Campitello is a dream, a victory to be achieved. Hospitality and a warm welcome are held sacred by the Consortium of public and private operators that runs the resort. In summer, cultural and sports meetings and events associated with farm food products are held in a modern tension structure. Excursions on foot and on horseback on marked paths allow visitors to reach the highest peaks from which they can look down on landscapes and sights of rare beauty. A short distance from Campitello there are some real archaeological treasures: the Samnite theatre of Pietrabbondante at a height of 1,200 metres and the fascinating remains of the Roman town of Altilia di Sepino with its waters with low mineral content. The other mountain chain of the Mainarde, on the borders with Latium and Abruzzo, has not yet been equipped for tourism and has preserved all its natural integrity. An imposing rocky barrier with sheer walls, it has been included in the Abruzzo National Park, along with the impressive high plateau of Valle Fiorita di Pizzone. From deep in its bowels there springs the river Volturno which, after an initially winding course, flows more calmly through the plain of Campania, its clear waters rich in trout. Near the source is the artificial lake of Castel San Vincenzo with the archaeological park of the same name on the site of a Benedictine monastery with a twelfth-century church which has been rebuilt and reopened to the public. On a spur of the two most important massifs is a growing winter and summer tourist resort: Capracotta, at 1,421 metres one of the highest towns in the central-southern Apennines. From its rocky ridge it overlooks the luxuriant valley of the river Sangro. Its winter sports facilities are on the highest peaks, Monte Campo (1,746 mt) and Monte Capraro (1,730 mt): a cross-country ski track with three loops covering a total of 15 kilometres around the refuge of Prato Gentile, open all year round, and a downhill ski run served by a ski lift with a descent of 500 metres, where the conditions of the snow covering are nearly always excellent. In the evening, the two hotels in the town centre and the restaurants serve tasty local dishes made of home-made pasta, lamb, sausages and cheeses made from sheep's milk, caciocavallo and the so-called "stracciata" with its unique flavour. In summer months there is even more to offer for tourists. 130 kilometres of paths allow excursions among woods, rocks and meadows that are always green, with an obligatory visit to the Garden of Apennine flora at a height of 1,550 metres; the garden covers many hectares with its numerous wild, ornamental, herbal and medicinal plants. On the first Sunday in August, the fair of "la pezzata" is held at Prato Gentile; this fair takes its name from a dish of mutton cooked in the old way favoured by the shepherds, with natural flavourings in copper pots. There are gastronomic appointments celebrating old popular traditions nearly every day in many of the surrounding towns, with the fair of the truffle at San Pietro Avellana which has become the major centre for the collection and sale of this tuber, of which Molise is the greatest producer in Italy. Just a quarter of an hour from Capracotta by car is the pleasant little town of Agnone with its old churches. It is a cradle of Molise's handicrafts for the working of copper and wrought iron and home of the ancient Marinelli foundry which has cast bells exported all over the world.

The Stories of Time
Housed in the former convent of the Poor Clares, comprising frescoed cloisters and broad flights of stairs, in the archaeological museum of Venafro you immediately have idea of a rich, busy town, with splendid public buildings richly decorated with marble - especially the theatre - from which come numerous architectural friezes and statues of illustrious characters depicted in a heroic pose, imitating the princes of the house of Augustus; there were also splendid private buildings owned by the most prominent families, enriched with mosaics, frescoes and architectural decorations in terracotta, but often also with splendid statues; the famous marble Venus - copy of one of the most famous statues of antiquity, the so-called Landolina Venus - standing there in all her nakedness in one of the ground-floor rooms in the museum, comes from a large, rich residential building where she probably adorned a fountain. Among the sarcophagi, steles and funerary inscription, statues of men in togas and the remains of monuments with a similar function, stands the horrific, gigantic face of a Gorgon, the funerary symbol par excellence. On the upper floors there are other exhibits commemorating everyday life, including the activities that were performed in the numerous country villas in the territory around Venafro where, ever since Cato's time, besides the manufacture of tiles and other products known throughout the area, and indeed even as far as Rome, there was an intense farming activity, focussed especially on the production of oil and wine. The Venafro museum contains a unique epigraphic document, of exceptional importance not only for the knowledge of one of the most important public works in the town and its district, but also for its juridical implications: the edict of Augustus. It regulated both the construction and the management of the Venafro aqueduct which, after having collected the water at the sources of the river Volturno, transported it and distributed it in the town after covering a distance of some thirty kilometres, partly in the open and partly in tunnels, through mountain crags and river gorges. The enormous stone on which the long edict is engraved is exhibited in the museum along with some of the many stones, installed along the route of the aqueduct, notifying the requirement to leave the necessary service space on either side of the pipe. At Isernia, the massive outline of the former convent of Santa Maria delle Monache, in the lower part of the town, marks the end of the dense network of the medieval town centre. The archaeological museum is housed in this building which itself represents many centuries of the town history, from the wall structures of the Latin colony established in 263 BC to those of the Empire, and the first structures of the church adjoining the convent, continuing with an uninterrupted sequence of buildings reaching almost to the threshold of the present day. The left wing of the ground floor is the final location of the Lapidarium, which was already set out in these rooms before the last world war: a collection of sculptures, bas reliefs, inscriptions, remains of architectural decorations, which mostly date back to the town's most flourishing period, the one between the second half of the first century BC and the first half of the century after that. These items made of stone were generally part of funerary monuments, but there are also honorary monuments, for example the base dedicated to Marcus Nonius showing, in the centre, an altar on which sacrifices are being held with suovetaurilia (sacrifices of pigs, sheep and oxen); or reliefs with battle scenes, such as the one depicting the battle of Alexander the Great, as reproduced in a famous mosaic in Pompeii; or even scenes of gladiators, so common on the funerary monuments of the illustrious local persons who used to finance those performances at their own expense. Another relief shows Ixion, tied to the wheel to which he was condemned for eternity, while another person had a donkey carved on the stone that he shares with his wife. The grave goods from the necropolis excavated at Quadrella, along the road that leaves the town and heads towards Venafro, are exhibited in the right wing on the ground floor: ceramic pottery, balsam and ointment boxes, lamps and often the obolus for Charon in these tombs of the local middle bourgeoisie, covering a period from the first to the third century AD. The rooms on the upper floor of the museum still contain the exhibits concerning the Palaeolithic settlement at La Pineta, complete with stone instruments and fauna, which are waiting to be transferred to their final destination in the new Palaeolithic Museum, now being completed in the same areas as the excavations. The items on display in the recent Museum of the Town and Territory, set up in the cottages that form a semi-circle around the cavea of the Roman theatre of Sepino, refer to the everyday life of a small provincial town, but there is no lack of cultured influence and the widespread circulation of fine objects. The exhibits cover an uninterrupted period from prehistory, with the first rudimentary stone tools, to the urban definition of the town in the early years of the Empire. They are mostly pottery, evolving from fine black-painted ceramic to forms that are characterised according to their period, glass ampoules, lamps, items made of metal, terracotta or lead: water pipes (fistulae aquariae) bearing the names of the municipal slaves who made them, or seals stamped on terracotta items. Then a marble table stand with a female head in relief, elements of the decoration of house roofs, coins, remains of polychrome stucco, fine metal necklaces, playthings (pawns, dice...), a tiny doll made of bone, even make-up accessories. When life in the town declined following the economic and demographic crises of the late Empire, the abandoned spaces were gradually used as burial places; some of the items in the last room of the museum come from tombs of the early Middle Ages: a bronze fibula with an inscription, a cross, a horse bit, but also early majolica bowls and cups of later periods. Founded just after the Unification of Italy and located in the old town centre, the Samnite Provincial Museum was the fruit of private collections and donations of various kinds and origins; after more than a century of adversities, during which it was shifted from one building to another, it has now returned to the site of its birth: the old town centre of Campobasso. The "glories of our fathers" kept in Palazzo Mazzarotta, the current home of the museum, date back to various periods, starting from the stone instruments of the most advanced stages of prehistory, and ending with the Roman period. They of course include the most authentic Samnite exhibits to be found in Molise: the knights of Agnone and of Trivento, unique exhibits of their kind which, despite their tiny dimensions, call to mind, with the essential nature of the features carved in the stone, that select body of men that played a leading role in the Samnite army. Among male clothing, the bronze belt had a highly symbolic role, identifying a caste - perhaps the caste of the knights? - while among the numerous female ornaments worn by the Samnite women to adorn their roughly woven garments, the so-called ch‰telaine was prevalent, a long pendant made of opposing spirals of thin bronze wires. The most immediate expression of Samnite religiosity is seen in the numerous bronze statuettes that depict especially Hercules, to whom the people were more devoted than to any other divinity. There are also noteworthy exhibits from later periods: the fine collection of oil-lamps, mostly from Serpino and Larino, include numerous types which cover an almost complete chronological sequence, from the first little oil-lamps turned on a potter's wheel to the moulded ones of the early Empire, sometimes with a disc decorated with complex scenes from the mythical world and from daily life, up until the coarse oil-lamps of the late Empire. A marble Hercules is one of the smallest replicas of what is believed to be one of the main works of Lysippus, the Heracles resting on his club, known from the gigantic Farnese Heracles in the Museum in Naples. The lower room of the museum houses an exhibit illustrating the Longobard necropolis at Campochiaro, with in the centre the reconstruction of one of the tombs containing horse and knight, complete with all their equipment: sword, shield, lance, arrows, belt, bit and stirrups. Also the Baranello Civic Museum is of nineteenth-century origin, the fruit of the love of antiquities of the architect G. Barone, who set it up in 1896 with materials of various kinds and origins, even including oriental ceramics, paintings and other modern genres, as was typical of the antiquarian taste of the time. The museum is now located in the same building where it was originally housed, with the same exhibiting criteria and the original display cases; thousands of objects are set out in the tiny rooms behind the glass doors of the old shelves: Attic and Italiot vases with black and red figures, terracotta statuettes of every shape, bronze necklaces, weapons, scraps of frescoes from Pompeii, oil-lamps... A central case contains an important collection of bronze items from the necropolis at Cuma, from the Early Iron Age.

In the green heart of Molise
Molise is an antique land in the noblest sense of the word. A land that, for thousands of years, has isolated and defended men and animals, thanks to impassable mountains and impenetrable forests. A territory which, though it participated by right in the great period of the history of Italy, always remained on the sidelines on account of its wild environment, full of risks and with few safe routes of communication which, until a few decades ago, ensured the splendid isolation of this border land. A land that is still little known today, perhaps because it is far from the main thoroughfares of an industrial "development" that has now been surpassed and which, for this reason, makes it a great environmental workshop where it is still possible to reconcile one's own well-being with a correct relationship with nature. The territory of Molise appears today like a half-way land, hinged between the Centre and the South of Italy, not only figuratively, but also from the bio-geographical point of view, from the peaks of the inland massifs, passing through the characteristic panorama of hills and ending by the shores of the Adriatic; just like the track of our journey which will enable us to get to know the spectacular and unique features of nature in Molise. Day is just breaking on the damp green mountain pastures of Upper Molise and the distant peal of the old bells of Agnone almost act as a sound track for the few flocks that peacefully graze on the edge of the fir forest of Collemelluccio in the municipality of Pescolanciano. Classified by UNESCO as a MAB Reserve (Man and the Biosphere), the Collemelluccio section (the other section of the Reserve, Montedimezzo, is just a few kilometres away) is today, along with the small fir forests of Capracotta, Perscopennataro, Agnone and those in nearby Abruzzo, one of the few precious sites of the white fir of the Apennines. Post-glacial residue of the old plant coverage, over the centuries the fir forests have suffered severely at the hand of man who has cut down large areas of forest, breaking up and gradually reducing the area of the white fir, but he has not succeeded in destroying the magic or the impressiveness of these forests. Not many kilometres as the crow flies from the fir forests of Upper Molise, the splendid mountain range of the Mainarde marks the southern entrance to the National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise where nature reigns supreme, protected with all its inhabitants. The sun is almost high over the Park and on the plateau of the Forme, near Pizzone, a herd of deer climbs placidly up the crest to enter the safer beech wood, just like the Abruzzo chamois which, on the crags of the 2200-metre-high Monte Meta, casts a suspicious eye on the more and more numerous excursionists who venture into the protected area. These areas are above all the kingdom of the brown bear, a solitary, reserved, great nocturnal walker that is not easy to encounter, and whose habitat is in the most secret mountain nooks and on the edges of the forests of the Mainarde. It is not unusual to spot a golden eagle hovering very high over the lonely rocks of Monte Marrone, from which height one can see even the nearby Marsh of Montenero Valcocchiara, a spectacular karst basin of great hydro-geological interest and wet biotope of considerable naturalistic interest. The peaceful springs of the river Volturno are nearby, but the whole upper valley of the river is of great beauty and charm, where the waters flow first impetuously, then more and more slowly towards the plain to an old regulating basin of the electricity company ENEL, near Venafro, the Oasis of Le Mortine, run by the Italian branch of the WWF. This protected hygrophilous wood, lying between Molise and Campania, is a residue of the original river vegetation that has miraculously escaped the fiercest deforestation and is today a wetland of great interest for both scholars and birdwatchers. Our journey through the nature of the region continues and we are now at the northernmost edge of the Massif of the Matese, the great mountain of Molise. The yellow reflection of the buttercup is the splendid signal that, after the harsh snowy Apennine winter, the fine season has arrived even on the highest stony ground of this imposing mountain of limestone which, from North-West to South-East, marks not only the administrative but also the geographical and cultural boundary between Molise and Campania. The great karst plateaux, the dolinas and sinkholes, the canyons and deep caves, but also the peaks reaching a height of 2000 metres, speak of a very tormented geological history that has made this massif a kind of open-air geological and palaeontological museum. A day on the Matese means above all penetrating the thick beech woods which clothe the mountain side as far as the outskirts of the villages that look out over the plain of Bojano, following mountain paths that lead to the high meadows coloured with the lilac of the wild carnation and the yellow of the primula auricola, and observing the numerous species of orchids on the edge of the wood and on the pastures. We might be enchanted by the majestic flight of the kite and by the silent presence of two elusive mammals that frequent the most hidden spots of this mountain, the wild cat and the great guardian of the secrets of the Matese, the wolf who, without our knowledge, watches us from a clearing a few hundred metres away, determined but also intimidated by our presence. It is to be hoped that all this will be protected as soon as possible, since the many projects for the realisation of a park in the Matese in Molise have always sadly come to grief, with the exception of the project of the Nature Oasis of Guardiaregia-Campochiaro which has been run by WWF Italia since 1997. 2187 hectares mostly covered with thick beech woods, 4 kilometres of wild canyon formed by the course of the Quirino stream; 1050 metres is the depth of the incredible abyss of the Pozzo della Neve, 100 metres the leap of the waterfall of San Nicola and 500 years the age of the beech trees of the Tre Frati; these are only the main numbers of an area that sums up the principal characteristics of the entire Matese Massif. A real treasure chest of biodiversity where we are not even surprised to notice the tiny endemic "bespectacled" salamander, which we encounter in spring by the edges of the streams in the Oasis of Matese. On this mighty mountain is the source of the Biferno, the only river that flows entirely through Molise territory, marking its geography for ninety-three kilometres and, especially in the intermediate part, offering some quite striking sights. The vegetation of its banks is still quite well preserved, as at the edges of the great artificial basin of Guardialfiera, the waters of which have, for over thirty years, covered the old "Lands of the Sacrament", expertly described by Francesco Jovine, the great writer from Molise. "When the last ranges of the Apenning slope gradually down towards the sea with a placid sequence of valleys and more and more gentle and rounded hills, the landscape of Molise can become really pretty... water, trees, sky, start to look at one another and to create fair prospects and backgrounds that are habitually beautiful. Simple linear landscapes that contrast with the solitary, wild vigour of mountain scenery". That is what Jovine wrote in his "Viaggio nel Molise", when he was acting as correspondent in 1941 for the Giornale d'Italia, describing the territory of Lower Molise reaching towards the Adriatic. We are now standing on those same hills, on the watershed between the basins of the Biferno and the Fortore, on the last high lands that run swiftly towards the sea. Near Casacalenda, at Bosco Casale, it is interesting to find a small protected hill area run by the LIPU, the League for the Protection of Birds, where in its 140 hectares of woodland, but also in the typical rural landscape surrounding the oasis, it is not uncommon to encounter diurnal birds of prey such as the buzzard, the lanner and the sparrow hawk. From here it is not far to the artificial lake of Occhito, created by the damming of the river Fortore, and which marks the administrative limit between Molise and Apulia, another interesting lake environment of definite importance for its birds and wild life. The Celano-Foggia sheep path also passes near Lake Occhito and, a little farther west, the Pescasseroli-Candela and, from that one, other ten minor branches or tracks. Looking at them closely, the sheep tracks still look rather like carpets of grass rolled down from the mountains of Abruzzo and Molise towards the tableland or "Tavoliere" of Apulia. It was here that, until a few years ago, the shepherds drove their flocks in their hard toil of transhumance, accompanied by their poor hopes. Due to the ethnic and naturalistic importance of these "green highways", in the near future they will probably be protected in a great national park specially devoted to the sheep tracks. From these last gentle hills of Lower Molise, bathed in the yellow of sunflowers and the gold of the crops, the Adriatic seems very close and, just a few kilometres from the only industrial area in the region, we find the sandy shores of Termoli and Campomarino. But in every journey the real surprise always comes at the end and, for nature lovers, it is between the mouth of the Biferno and the Saccione stream where, despite the action of man linked with his bathing activities, in a residual strip we find the last environments of dunes, traces of which can been seen from Romagna to the Gargano, with nearly all the aspects of the primitive dune vegetation. Sitting here on these dunes, in the early hours of a cold morning, our short journey through the intense nature of Molise inevitably comes to an end and in a few minutes the sun will shine down on the changing colours of this little scrap of Italy, from the blue of its crystal-clear sea to the summer yellow of its low hills, to the green of the woods and pastures in spring and the candid white of the winter snow in the mountains.