Overview
Raise your glasses filled with "Moscatello" to Castiglione a Casauria, in the province of Pescara, in the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park.
Surrounded by precious, ancient vineyards, the small fortified village is the centre of production of the sweet, passito, natural liqueur wine that originates from an ancient malvasia grape from the island of Crete: it has small, narrow berries, a golden color tending to amber, which is enjoyed with local desserts.
Taste it for example with the donuts, another must of the area, to which a lucky festival is dedicated. You can find them in various types, soft, hard, boiled, with cream and baking soda, with ammonia, and even with Muscat itself. A real delicacy.
Castiglione is an ancient village, first mentioned in 987: it is fortified by the triangular tip of the Castle (called Palazzo De Petris-Fraggiani since the 18th century), and enriched by small palaces and balconies, decorated by local stonemasons and the artistic portal of the ex-Church of St. Francis.
The jewel of the area is the Abbey of San Clemente a Casauria, one of the greatest examples of medieval religious architecture in central-southern Italy and the center of the spiritual and economic life of the local and southern Italian populations.
"From the south", wrote the Abruzzese writer Ignazio Silone in his time "came not only soldiers and tax collectors. As early as the 11th century, Benedictine fathers arrived there from the Abbey of Montecassino. The most precious that the region possesses even today - the monastery of San Liberatore in Maiella, San Pietro in Alba Fucens, the churches of Atri, Capestrano and Rosciolo, Santa Maria in Arabona and San Clemente in Casauria - dates back to that first period of reawakening of the spirit after the long night of barbarism".
The Benedictine complex, whose foundation dates back to 871, was erected by Emperor Ludwig II of the Holy Roman Empire and dedicated to St. Clement on the occasion of the transfer of the martyred pope's remains.
Like many other cloisters, abbeys, and churches, it was born next to a pagan temple, perhaps "the Casa Aurea", which would give rise to the name of places like Castiglione a Casauria and Tocco a Casauria.
Don't miss a visit: it is a treasure case of artistic artifacts, the ambo, the candelabra, the urn, distinguished by the "Leonate porch" and the wonderful central portal.
A jewel of the ancient medieval art of Abruzzo, for whose preservation we must also thank the Vate, who personally intervened so that the abbey in continuous decay after centuries of glory, was declared a national monument in 1894, returning to its present splendor.