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Ancient Gambatesa

Toppo della Vipera ("Vipera Ridge"), Toppo della Salandra ("Salandra Ridge"), and Piana delle Noci ("Plain of Walnuts").

The Italian word toppo means: "the top of a cliff where a hill has been cut in half."  In the photograph below Vipera is the farther from the viewer of the two cliffs on the right.  At one time Salandra, Vipera and the village center of Gambatesa formed a single sandstone structure, but long ago they were separated by earthquakes.  There is a fault line corresponding to the Torrente Succida, the river which is lies between Salandra and Vipera on the map.

The place known as La Piana delle Noci ("The Plain of Walnuts", although maybe there no walnut trees there) begins just to the left of Toppo della Vipera and then occupies the upper middle third of the photograph above.  On the map it is the lowland between the Masseria Biagietti ("Biagietti Farm"), Toppo della Salandra, the Masseria Venditti, and Serra della Croce.  At the center of the photograph, just below the Plain, there are olive trees planted in rows (a large grove of olive trees); however, there is not enough water in that place to make the trees grow well.

Photograph by Angelo Abiuso (Geneva), August 2004.  The view is from altitude 422 meters on Via Serrone where Angelo was standing, looking towards the Masseria Venditti altitude 311 meters -- if you drew a straight line on the map to connect them.

Related Pages:

• Gambatesa - Colle Serrone: colle means both "hill" and "pass".  Via Serrone lies along the ridge of a hill and below this hill lies the historically important tratturo ("sheep trail") and pass between Molise and the Region of Puglia to its south.
• Gambatesa: Fragments of History and of Art by Salvatore Abiuso, with an English language translation and notes.  Gambatesa is a comune (a "village and its agricultural land") in the Province of Campobasso, Region of Molise, Italy.
• Donato Venditti's Histories of Gambatesa: books written by Gambatesa's old parish priest.

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The URL of this Web page: https://www.roangelo.net/valente/anticogb.html
Last revised: 19 August 2005 : 2005-08-19 by Robert [Wesley] Angelo.

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