Region
Molise
Molise's 27 towns in our catalogue split across the Isernia and Campobasso provinces; 9 carry the Città dell'Olio designation.
27 towns · highest: Capracotta 1,421m · smallest: Pescopennataro 239 people
27 of 27 towns
27 of 27 towns
Agnone
Province: Isernia
At 840 meters in the Alto Molise, town of the Marinelli pontifical bell foundry and the Ndocciata fire procession on Christmas Eve.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise' — a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with the Chiesa di San Silvestro carved into the rock itself and the Castello Sanfelice rebuilt on its summit.
Campobasso
Province: Campobasso
Molise's regional capital and the smallest in Italy — 47,000 residents at 701m on a wooded Apennine ridge, with the Castello Monforte on the summit, the Sagra dei Misteri (a UNESCO-recognised Corpus Domini procession of 24 child-borne aerial 'mysteries' since 1740), and a centro storico that climbs the hillside in stone-paved switchbacks.
Capracotta
Province: Isernia
At 1,421 meters the second-highest commune in central Italy, holder of the world record for snowfall in 24 hours: 2.56 meters on 5 March 2015.
Castel del Giudice
Province: Isernia
Italy's most-cited Apennine reinvention case study — a 308-resident Alto Molise borgo at 800m that rebuilt its abandoned schoolhouse as a 30-room albergo diffuso, recovered 5,000 ancient apple trees into a recognised organic-orchard cooperative, and became the template Comuni Virtuosi cite when explaining how depopulated villages can self-sustain.
Castel San Vincenzo
Province: Isernia
A 749-meter village near the Volturno source, sharing ground with one of medieval Europe's most powerful abbeys and a ninth-century frescoed crypt.
Civitacampomarano
Province: Campobasso
The Molisan ghost-borgo that became Italy's most ambitious street-art village — 302 residents and 30+ large-format murals by international artists (Bifido, Hitnes, Alice Pasquini, Borondo, Vesod) painted across the abandoned house-walls of the centro storico during the annual CVTà Street Fest since 2016, anchored by the 11th-c Castello Angioino on a tufa spur.
Ferrazzano
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop borgo at 872 meters above Campobasso, called the Sentinel of Molise, where Robert De Niro's great-grandparents lived before sailing in 1887.
Fornelli
Province: Isernia
A walled medieval borgo at 530 meters with seven towers and the birthplace of Nancy Pelosi's mother, eight kilometers west of Isernia.
Frosolone
Province: Isernia
A 900-meter blade-making town in the Matese foothills, called Italy's Toledo for the knives and scissors forged here since the 1800s.
Guardialfiera
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop village at 285 meters above the largest artificial lake in Molise, the home ground of the writer Francesco Jovine.
Guglionesi
Province: Campobasso
A 369-meter hill town between the Biferno and Trigno valleys, founded by the Frentani in the fifth century BC and looking out toward the Adriatic.
Isernia
Province: Isernia
A provincial capital on a 423-meter rock spine, with a Paleolithic site dated 700,000 years and a thirteenth-century public fountain.
Larino
Province: Campobasso
A 341-meter Frentani and Roman town in the lower Biferno valley, with a 12,000-seat amphitheatre and a Gothic cathedral consecrated in 1319.
Macchiagodena
Province: Isernia
Molise's white truffle capital — a 1,648-resident hilltop borgo at 868m in the Apennine middle Molise, with the Castello dei Pignatelli on the summit, intact medieval streets, and 30+ active truffle hunters working the surrounding oak forests with the local Molise white truffle harvest October-December.
Montenero di Bisaccia
Province: Campobasso
A tufa hill town at 273 meters above the northernmost stretch of Molise coast, home base of former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro and his vineyards.
Oratino
Province: Campobasso
A stonemason borgo at 780 meters above the Biferno, with a square tower on a limestone spur that an earthquake in 1456 left standing alone.
Pescopennataro
Province: Isernia
An Alto Molise stone village at 1,190 meters, the paese della pietra e degli abeti, above a rare high-altitude white-fir forest.
Petacciato
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop village at 225 meters on the Adriatic, with a Romanesque church in tuff and sandstone and a long sand beach below.
Pizzone
Province: Isernia
A 313-person Mainarde village at 724 meters in the Molise sector of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, above the Volturno springs.
Ripalimosani
Province: Campobasso
A sandstone-ridge village at 640 meters above the Biferno valley, the historic land of the funai rope makers and a Tintilia wine commune.
Roccamandolfi
Province: Isernia
At 850 meters at the foot of Monte Miletto, a Matese village of brigand legends, Lombard ruins, and a Tibetan bridge over the Callora canyon.
Roccavivara
Province: Campobasso
A 652-meter village above the Trigno river valley, home to the Romanesque Santuario della Madonna del Canneto with its 1223 ambone and 14th-century gothic Madonna del Sorriso.
Scapoli
Province: Isernia
Italy's zampogna bagpipe capital — a 586-resident borgo in the Mainarde at 668m, with a centuries-old tradition of hand-building the zampogna (Italian bagpipe), an annual International Bagpipe Festival in July drawing players from Galicia, Scotland, Bulgaria, and 15+ other countries, and the Bandiera Arancione + Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise national park signals.
Sepino
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop borgo at 698 meters at the foot of the Matese, two kilometers above the Roman Saepinum, the open-air city the sheep tracks built.
Termoli
Province: Campobasso
Molise's only port, a walled promontory of fishermen's houses on the Adriatic with a Frederick II castle and the ferry pier for the Tremiti islands.
Venafro
Province: Isernia
A 222-meter town near the Lazio border where Augustus founded a colony and Pliny called the olive oil the best in the Roman Empire.
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An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.