History of Acquaviva Collecroce and Montemitro

Acquaviva Collecroce

Acquaviva Collecroce, in Croatian Molise Kruč, is located on a hill 425 meters above sea level and is 60 km from Campobasso, the regional capital, and 35 km from Termoli, a city overlooking the sea. Acquaviva was founded around the eleventh century; it is mentioned for the first time, with the Benedictine monastery of Sant'Angelo in Palazzo, located in its territory, in a decree of Charles II of Anjou of November 1300. The monastery, with its appurtenances, had been assigned in 1297, with a Bull of Boniface VIII, to the Knights of San Giovanni Gerolimitano (later of Malta). Around 1500 groups of Slavs, from Dalmatia, who were fleeing the invasion of the Turks, settled in the territory, depopulated following the earthquake of 1456. After several years, in 1562, they made the capitulations with the Knights of Malta and were able to enter the country. The Knights held the fief of Acquaviva until 1785. The inhabitants still speak the Molisan Croatian language, Na-našu (ours), a Croatian štocako-ikavo dialect. The town is full of fountains and fountains: Marmorica, Pisciariello, Fontana Nuova, Fontana Vecchia, Trocche. The church, dedicated to Saint Mary Esther, was rebuilt in 1715. The school building, the central square and a village street are dedicated to fellow citizen Nicola Neri (1761-1799), commissioner of the Parthenopean Republic, executed in 1799. He, the last time he left the country, would have recommended: “Nemojte zabit naš lipi jezik!” (Don't forget our beautiful language!)

Montemitro is a municipality in Molise where Molise Croatian (na-našo in the Montemitrana variant) has been spoken for five centuries. It is located on the border with Abruzzo (from which the Trigno river divides it), on a hill at 508 meters above sea level. It has 274 inhabitants. The first news of Montemitro dates back to 1024. Probably the first settlement of the Croats arrived in the territory of Montemitro was in the locality three kilometers from the village called Selo, which in standard Croatian means‘ village, village ’. The historic center of Montemitro, with its alleys and typical underpasses, developed around the parish church, dedicated to Santa Lucia Vergine e Martire, which dates back to the seventeenth/eighteenth century. Once there was a wooden statuette of Saint Lucy, stolen before the Second World War. According to oral tradition, the statue was brought to Montemitro by the Croats, who five hundred years ago arrived in the village on a Friday in May. For this reason, the patron saint, Saint Lucy, is celebrated in Montemitro every Friday in May, especially on the last Friday (‘nazanji petak’). In the locality of Selo there is the Chapel of Santa Lucia, inaugurated in 1935, and, around it, the remains of what was probably the first settlement of the Croats in Montemitro. Every Sunday in albis here the Chapel Festival is celebrated, with the procession of the faithful from the mother church, the mass in the Chapel and the auction of sweets in honor of the saint. Montemitro has the title of Country of Poetry for the high percentage of poets who write in Molise Croatian, and walking through the historic center you can find plaques with the verses of the Montemitrani poets.

Montemitro