The old Main Square

Nowadays it is very hard to fancy this place as a square , in fact the street has taken up the whole space.

The present-day aspect has been the result of a great deal of natural (earthquake 1915) and human actions.

Until 1938 that place was a small square , 20 metres large, surrounded by big buildings belonging to the wealthy families of the village.

Up to 1830 in one of those buildings, there were the offices of the Customs . Customs agents checked the trades occurring between the Kingdom of Naples and the Papal State at the mountain border post of Serra Sant’Antonio.

In 1938 the small square and the surrounding houses were demolished because it had to be made the present-day road called Simbruina . That road connects now the village of Capistrello to the village of Filettino , that is in the Latium region.

It was made by the will of the Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani.

The walls that can be seen around are nothing but the retaining walls of the road , the raised part of which has absorbed the remains of the ancient houses of the village. In other words the room occupied by the road today was full of the houses that skirted the ancient road ; some short stretches of it are still visible. The old people of the village keep on calling that square “Piazza della Dogana” or Customs Square.

From that spot the large landscape of the Valle Roveto opens out showing all its beauty. Looking down , both the ruins of the power plant of Torlonia and the tunnels of the railway Avezzano –Roccasecca can be seen.