Summonte

Summonte sits at 738 meters on the western slope of Monte Vallatrone, at the foot of the Partenio massif, ten kilometers from Avellino. The name comes from the Latin Submontis, under the mountain. Pre-Roman tombs of the Osci show the slope was inhabited well before the current village, which dates from the 5th century when refugees from Nola, Abella and Abellinum took to the heights to escape the barbarian raids.

The borgo grew in concentric arcs around its tower. In 1134 Roger II of Sicily razed the first Norman-Swabian castle on the summit; the Angevin lords who took over in the 13th and 14th centuries built a 16-meter cylindrical mastio around the surviving stub, the Torre Angioina, which still rises above the rooftops and the Partenio. The Della Leonessa family held the fief through the late Middle Ages and the Doria del Carretto controlled it for two centuries until feudalism ended in 1806. Hazelnuts from the surrounding slopes feed the Avellino industrial chain that supplies Nutella and the pasticceria of Naples.