Pietraroja: a journey through history, nature and tradition

Pietraroja, a jewel of Matese, blends nature, history and culture. Among unique fossils, timeless legends and authentic flavours, the village reveals an ancient past and a deep connection with the mountain. Pietraroja’s soul can be perceived even along the road leading to the town. About 900 metres above sea level, dominated by the peaks of the Matese range between Benevento and Campobasso, its surroundings comprise the Matese Regional Park nature reserve, where the region of Campania borders that of Molise. These frontiers were crossed by generations of shepherds travelling with herds of animals when, at the end of summer, men, and often children as well, trekked towards Apulia in their yearly transhumance. “The animals knew the way. Many people went, in order to share the work.” A young cheesemaker talks about his roving grandfather while pulling his own caciocavallo cheese. “In the Gargano region, while awaiting the spring, migrant people from Pietraroja made cheese in a…

Pecorino cheese (“lu càsu”)

“Lu càsu” pecorino is still made using artisanal methods: warm milk, spido, fuscèlle, and great care come together to create a cheese that tells the story of the land. Techniques handed down from one generation to the next are used to transform simple ingredients into products of authentic flavour. Pecorino cheese is a distinctive speciality of this area, where it is still made using artisanal methods. Milk at a temperature of about 35 degrees is poured into a churn. Rennet is added and left to coagulate. After about half an hour, the cheese paste is broken up into small fragments, manually pushing the “spido” tool towards the bottom of the vessel. Part of the paste is used to obtain the curds which will become ricotta cheese.

Zì Peppu Mamèo

Zì Peppu Mamèo, legendary wizard of Pietraroja, guarded a magic book and cast an eternal spell before being arrested. A tale between myth and memory, carved in stone. A legend steeped in mystery lies in the village’s stone heart. Ancient tales tell of a wizard who lived here from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. He was so famous that he attracted “customers” from many towns, people who wished to discover the secrets hidden in his arcane incantations. The man was famous for a magic book, the source of all his knowledge, that he kept jealously hidden. His growing popularity worried the village priest who saw that fewer and fewer people were sitting on his church pews. Determined to put an end to this cult, the priest reported the wizard to the authorities. On the day that the military police came to arrest him, in a gesture of desperate defiance, Peppe walled up the precious book in his home. When leaving the house, he tripped and fell onto a marble slab, which split…

“Scipionyx Samniticus”

Ciro, the baby dinosaur discovered in Pietraroja, is one of the most important fossils in Italy. An exceptional finding that revolutionised science. One of the most important geo-palaeontological findings, the fossil of a young dinosaur, the first to be discovered in Italy, revolutionised the reconstruction of the country’s palaeogeography, and it is part of the Pietraroja area. The story of Ciro – a typical Neapolitan boy’s name, given to it by the media because it was discovered in the region of Campania – began about 110 million years ago during the Lower Cretaceous epoch. Discovered in 1981 by Giovanni Todesco, after a series of vicissitudes Ciro was presented to the international community through studies by Cristiano Lorenzo Dal Sasso and Marco Signore published in the scientific magazine “Nature”. Considering the rarity of the data, this is considered as an exceptional discovery: the skeleton is almost complete, and for the first time, there are the remains of many…