Roscigno, the ghost town

Story and Photos by Fabrizio Fiorenzano

In the beautiful landscape of the National park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, which includes almost all the southern part of the province of Salerno with 86 municipalities, there are historical and natural beauties which often manage to surprise even the men and women that in these areas live for decades.
We are very often used to visit exotic places, mountain, beach, or big cities, but run into town abandoned and set ghost town, moreover in a Western context, it does not happen every day.
If you want to make a little trip through the time, taking a step back by more than one hundred years, you can satisfy this desire devoting a half day city tour of Old Roscigno. This town once stood at the foot of a hill descending to the plateau of Monte Pruno.
Its name seems to derive from the word “russignuolo” or nightingale.

Unfortunately the country, due its morphology, at the beginning of the 900 began to creak and move slowly. As a result of these natural events he was nicknamed “Roscigno , the country that walks”. Despite this situation the population never found the courage to leave the country until, however, in 1902 and in 1908, two special laws were enacted in favor of all the landslides that forced evictions from areas at risk of landslides . The residents were forced to move permanently in an area nearby so to rebuild the city which then in later years took the name of New Roscigno and where still live the descendants of the ancient peasant civilization.