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| They
say that refugees from Castel Pirgino and neighbouring
boroughs founded S. giovanni rotondo in XI century. Frederick
II got it away from vassalage of Abbey of S. Giovanni
in Lamis (actually Monastery of S. Matteo). He surrounded
the town with walls and 15 towers (there are only two
left). Angioni and Aragonesi sacked and burned it. 1500
was a quiet period because the town went under Naples
kingdom. In 1600 S. Giovanni went through horrible calamities:
the 1627's earthquake and 1656's plague. In 1700 the town
was reborn. They completed public works started previously;
bigger roads and more comfortable houses. The 1809 Napoleonic
law suppressed the monastic orders: both the monastery
of S. Francesco and the monastery of Cappuccini were abandoned.
In 1837 there was the cholera; in 1864 the flood; in 1871
the red grasshoppers; in 1875 the werathquake; in 1883
the robbery of all the precious goods from the Chiesa
Madre. Eventually, in 1916 the Frate di Pietrelcina went
to the ancient Monastery of Cappuccini: he got S. Giovanni
Rotondo flourishing and active as we know it nowadays.
Within the Sanctuary the Padre Pio's tomb is: magnificent
is the Grand Via Crucis with the Padre Pio's bronze statue. |
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Population
25.500 Altitude m 566
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