Piazza Roma
Main Street in Gessopalena
Feast of Santa Maria Raccamandati
Church of the Annunciation
Church of St. Egidio
I visited Gessopalena in 1997. Through my research I had discovered that the mayor was my cousin. He and his family were so wonderful to us. Unfortunately, we could only stay in Gessopalena for 2 days but I am so grateful I had the opportunity to see the town where my ancestors lived. Here is some information my cousin gave me about the town.
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Reference to Gessopalena has been found in historical documents from the 9th century which listed the Castello de Gessi as a possession of the Abbott of Montecassino and again in 1059, a Papal Bull of Nicholas II refers to the village as Gipso de Domo. The name Gessopalena was used after 1481, when it became part of the "county of palena" created by Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples. The village was build on a chalk outcrop (Gesso in Italian means chalk) and it position high on a cliff overlooking the valley below saved the Old Village from both plague and bandits. Paese Vecchio (Old Village) is mostly ruins now, however, you can see the walls of house & churches as well as a stable and an oil press. The Church of St. Egidio (picture) was built in the Middle Ages and was used as a monastery in the 16th Century. The Church of the Annunciation was built in the 13th or 14th Century. Next to the Church you can see what were cellars of what was probably a wealthy household. If this is where the Castello di Gessi stood, then the Church of the Annunciation most likely was the noble family's chapel.
In 1705 there was a terrible earthquake and many of the houses of aristocracy were rebuilt, but the population was beginning to spread beyond the main gate of the Old Village leading to the establishment of a new neighborhood and eventually a New Village which the people referred to as "Terranova.
Over the centuries, the chalk outcrop provided work for hundreds of people called "gessaroli" (chalk workers). The mortar which was used to build the Roman settlement at Juvanum most like came from Gessopalena and all the surrounding villages bought chalk from the gessaroli who carried it on mules or donkeys. The other main sources of income were craft work (the lacemakers of Gessopalena are typical of Abruzzo), and agriculture, especially sheep raising. Piazza Roma (picture), the main village square lies on the route of an ancient trail used for seasonal migration of sheep.
The Persiani, Finamore, Alferi, Tozzi, Turchi and Pellicciotti families were the feudal barons who owned all the land and controlled the life of the village and the surrounding area in the 17th & 18th Centuries.
During WWII nearly all of Gessopalena was destroyed and today the Old Village is completed abandoned.