History, peoples and cultures

The Lucanian Apennines Val d'Agri Lagonegrese National Park is the result of a long and layered history, written over time by men, peoples and civilisations who crossed these mountains following the water, the natural passes and the great routes connecting the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas.

Already in the Pleistocene, this territory was a profoundly different environment from today's: a vast lake basin occupied the Agri valley, surrounded by lush nature and populated by species that have now disappeared, such as the elephas antiquus, whose remains (dating back to around 500,000 years ago) were found in San Giuliano in Grumento Nova and are preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of the Upper Val d'Agri. A generous landscape that attracted humans since ancient times.

The first traces of human presence date back to the Middle Palaeolithic: small nomadic groups of hunters and fishermen exploited the resources offered by rivers, lakes and forests, moving between caves, seasonal camps and river banks, leaving the first evidence of their presence in the stone tools found between Marsico Nuovo, Paterno in Civita and Moliterno in Murgia Sant'Angelo. With the gradual improvement of the climate between the 6th and 5th millennia BC, the valley saw a decisive turning point: the first permanent settlements were established, agriculture and livestock farming took hold, and the territory began to organise itself into structured villages. Archaeological evidence found between Marsico Nuovo, Marsicovetere, Viggiano, Lagonegro and Paterno tells of an already complex community, capable of working with ceramics, raising livestock and burying their dead according to defined rituals.

Between the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, the Agri valley became a veritable cultural corridor of southern Italy. Settlements multiplied in the valley floor and on strategic high ground, while the monumental necropolises of Viggiano and Marsicovetere tell the story of structured, hierarchical communities. It was in this context that the first Enotrian settlements developed, encouraged by contact with the Greek world of the Ionian coast, as demonstrated by the finds discovered in the necropolis of San Martino d'Agri. But it was with the arrival of the Lucanians, between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, that the territory changed its appearance: new fortified centres found in Marsico Nuovo, Moliterno in Madonna del Vetere and Tramutola in Castelli, sanctuaries, places of worship and rural complexes, such as the Masseria Nigro in Viggiano, redesigned the landscape. The dynamic and combative Lucanian society was based on an advanced agricultural economy and a strong religious dimension, linked to fertility cults and warrior deities, as evidenced by the sanctuary of Serra Lustrante in Armento.

The arrival of Rome marked a radical turning point. The foundation of Grumentum transformed the Val d'Agri into a strategic hub of southern Italy. Roads (such as the Via Herculia, named after Maximian Herculius, Augustus emperor of the West during the Diocletian tetrarchy), aqueducts, agricultural centuriation and public monuments integrated the territory into a wide-ranging economic and administrative system. The city experienced its heyday between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD, acquiring a forum, temples, a theatre, an amphitheatre, thermal baths and domus decorated with refined mosaics. The valley and foothills were certainly densely populated, with farms and villas, such as the one in Barricelle di Marsicovetere that belonged to the Bruttii Praesentes, one of the most powerful senatorial families of the time, from whom Bruttia Crispina, wife of Emperor Commodus, was descended.

Grumentum was also a bishopric from 370 AD, which was then moved to Marsico Nuovo in the mid-11th century due to its serious state of decline. In this regard, the slab (6th century) decorated with the Christological monogram within a clipeus formed by a leafy crown flanked by two racemes, now part of the external masonry of the Cathedral of San Giorgio in Marsico Nuovo, is probably of Grumentine origin.

A very important figure for the Val d'Agri contributed to the Christianisation of the valley and the establishment of the bishopric of Grumentum: Saint Laverio. The first martyr of Lucania, he was beheaded in 312 AD in a place steeped in symbolic significance, at the confluence of the Agri River and the Sciaura Stream, on the outskirts of the Roman city, where one of the main necropolises stood. He was buried here, and the site dedicated to him preserves an extraordinary architectural stratification: beneath the nineteenth-century chapel lie the remains of a large early Christian basilica from the fifth to sixth century. The discovery of two late antique sarcophagi, one of which is finely decorated with bucrania, kantharoi and garlands, fuels the hypothesis that the martyr's remains were kept here.

Epic battles of the Second Punic War were also fought at the gates of Grumentum: Hannibal, the greatest military leader of all time and Rome's most feared enemy, crossed these valleys, taking advantage of mountain passes and paths that still today define the geography of the Park. Livy, one of the leading Roman historians, recounted the exploits of the Carthaginian leader in Val d'Agri, describing in his books (book XXIII, 37 and book XXVII, 31.42) two events involving the leader in Grumentum, such as the battle that took place in 207 BC against the consul Claudius Nero.

Between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, wars, famines and epidemics caused the depopulation of the plains and the gradual dissolution of the Roman urban system. Grumentum was slowly abandoned, while the populations sought refuge in the hills, giving rise to the fortified villages that still characterise the human landscape of the Park. During this transition phase, a new protagonist emerged: monasticism. First the Basilian monks and then the Benedictines were not only spiritual guides but also true organisers of the territory. They cleared the land, rebuilt production networks, and founded monasteries and hospices along the main traffic routes, contributing to a slow but decisive rebirth, which was soon disrupted by Lombard and Saracen incursions. The definitive destruction of Grumentum accelerated the birth of villages destined to last over time: Moliterno, Montemurro, Viggiano, San Martino d'Agri, Spinoso, Tramutola and Armento have their roots in this phase of territorial reorganisation.

With the Normans first and then Frederick II, Lucania experienced a period of relative stability and revival. However, the transition to the Angevins and Aragonese brought demographic crises and a rigid feudal system that concentrated power in the hands of a few large families, including the Sanseverino family. Despite everything, churches, convents and works of art continued to be built, thanks to religious patronage and the work of artists who still today mark the cultural identity of the villages in the Park.

The Modern Age was marked by increasingly strong social tensions, culminating in revolts against baronial power and, at the end of the 18th century, in the revolutionary uprisings of 1799. The Risorgimento found fertile ground in the Val d'Agri in particular, and in the Lucanian Apennines in general: here, one of the most rapid and decisive anti-Bourbon uprisings in the South was organised, leading to the proclamation of the Unification of Italy in 1860, even before Garibaldi landed in Calabria.

The enthusiasm for unification soon gave way to disillusionment. Poverty, taxes and the failure to implement agrarian reform fuelled post-unification brigandage, which found a natural refuge in the woods and mountains of the park. Figures such as Carmine Crocco became symbols of an ambiguous rebellion, suspended between criminality and social protest, leaving a deep mark on the collective memory.

Today, walking along the paths, through the villages and landscapes of the Lucanian Apennines Val d'Agri Lagonegrese Park, you can experience a thousand years of history made up of adaptation, resistance and continuous rebirth.

A land that has never been a periphery, but a crossroads of civilisations, cultures and destinies, still capable of recounting, to those who know how to listen, its long dialogue between man and nature.