Palazzo San Gervasio
Palazzo San Gervasio is a small town with 5029 inhabitants (as at 31 December 2012) in the southern Italian province of Potenza. The neighboring municipalities are Acerenza, Banzi, Forenza, Genzano di Lucania, Maschito, Venosa and Spinazzola (BA). In Palazzo San Gervasio vines are grown for the red wine Aglianico del Vulture.
History
At the beginning of the 11th century, a Norman-Swabian castle fisches was built on the eastern edge of the church today, the palatium Regium from which the town got its name. For the members of the garrison, the first dwellings were built around the fortification. Within these first houses a small church was built, which was dedicated to St. San Gervasio e Protasio (hence the name Palazzo San Gervasio ). From the son of the Norman King Robert Guiscard, Duke Roger, the site was donated to the monastery of the Trinity Hlg. in Venosa.
The French mercenary leader Charles I of Anjou, the last remnants of the Hohenstaufen domination in southern Italy abolished by order of the Pope, and was it invested with the kingdom of Sicily, took shortly after his accession to power of in 1267 Palazzo San Gervasio as a major defense post for the whole Basilicata, his local supervisor was Nicola da Venosa Frezzano. Here a famous episode in the horse breeding was established soon after.
In the 16th century King Ferdinand joined the Catholic from the possession of Palazzo San Gervasio to Nicola Maria Caracciolo, Duke of Castellaneta. In a Invenatisierung in 1531, the castle has been described as in good condition, the adjacent village at that time numbered 90 hearth ( families).
The population consists (as of May 2007) 2,530 men from e 2,549 women together. A total of 1,856 families live there.
The fort
The fort is of regular rectangular plan and is considered one of the hunting castles of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is striking, the use of regular ashlar in the exterior as well as the shapes of windows, which also include a round oculus, and apparently come from the Hohenstaufen period of construction.
The library
Giuseppe Mucciante, one of the many who had emigrated from Palazzo San Gervasio to America left behind after his death in 1978, a sum of one million dollars to build ( in place a new library and an art gallery, the centuries-old library holdings of the village were moved to Matera 1939 been ). Today Joseph and Mary Agostino Memorial Library has now been set up in Vico Veglia # 1 in restored rooms.