Camarda
rises on a low hill in the Valleverde valley and has a small river that
runs through the town. This stream originates on the mountainside of Gran
Sasso and makes its way to another village: the burgh of Assergi. As the other medieval
burghs, Camarda was built on downhill and therefore the more ancient part of
that is on the top of the hill.
Walking through the narrow streets of
Camarda, under stone arches and on stone stairs, the wayfarer is given a sense
of peace and warmth, a tranquility that only these forgotten burghs can give. And
Camarda is just one of those burghs that tourism has forgotten, leaving it as
it was in the past, without disfiguring its medieval structure. Today, visiting
Camarda, is visiting the village where the La Bella di Camarda
novel was set: everything is as it was yesterday.
Walking uphill through the narrow streets,
you can reach the most famous square of this village: the Treo Square. For the people living
here, this place is a symbol. It is the link with an unforgotten past. It was
here that the people gathered: the old lady spinning with her friends, the
children growing up, the old men playing "morra", the peasants
coming back from fields, the young lover coming here to peep at the his girl
while she was drawing water from the fountain... And with the phrase "Ji
escio...vajio poco ajiu Treu " ("I get out to the Treo
Square"), everyday the people gathered here, in this square that is just a
crossing of three streets for the ordinary tourist but the place where the time
stopped for the people living in the burgh.
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| The Treo Square and the Fountain (Photo by John Kocinski) |
In the Treo Square, the Clock Tower always
says the hour and the time flows slowly by, suspended between present and past.
The clock was built in 1873 and put on the tower at a time when no one had a
clock at home. The strokes clanged through the fields planted with wheat or
hemp. Down in the valley, there were farmers bent over the ground, harvesting
fruits, while they were singing long and sweet jingles. The Treo Clock has
never been regular: sometimes it didn't strike, sometimes it struck for long
time. The old people say that the clock doesn’t function correctly because of
the watchmaker who made it. They say that this was how he took his revenge because
he wasn’t paid enough.
Sometimes, still to this day, in this
small burgh of the Province
of L'Aquila, forgotten by
tourism and world, that Clock still strikes. And when the people hear its
stroke during the wrong hours, raucous and strained now, as a old man who
didn't give up making a fool of the citizens of Camarda, some old man looks at
that and whispers in his grandson's ear: "L'orologio del Treo è sempre
matto per cinque lire mancate al patto fatto " ("The Treo Clock
is always crazy because of five lire less ").
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| The Treo Clock Tower (Photo by G. Lattanzi) |
And while the Clock is striking its jokes,
the old ladies are leaving the Church
of Saint John Baptist
to go home. The church is solitary again and its solitude is mitigated by the
voice of its friend, the mad Treo Clock. The Saint John Baptist's Church has
always been there and, perhaps, Camarda can not exist without it. Nobody knows
when the Church was built. Maybe in the same place, there was an other church. Certainly,
the Church of Saint John Baptist has a medieval
structure and a document tells us that in 1478 a beautiful tabernacle
was put in the church. This tabernacle still remains there today.
The Church has kept intact a very precious
treasure: the beautiful Organ of the Church of Saint John Baptist, built
by Adriano Fedri between 1770 and 1780. This instrument is still there and
every day it delights the church-goers with its music. The organ still has its
original parts- only the keyboard and pedal board date back to 1871 and were
made by Antonio Fedri, Adriano's son. (To know more about the Organ, read this article)
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| The Church of Saint John Baptist |
Camarda would not exist without its
guardian, that Castle which in reality is just a sighting tower, called the Tower
of Castle. In 1173, the Castle belonged to Atenulfo, the ruler of Tempera
but later in 1553, it was bought by Stefano Valles from Naples.
Today, the tower is solitary and austere
and was sadly damaged by the earthquake in 2009. However is still remains there
on the top of the hill, in order that it can keep watch over the citizens of Camarda, while the little hens
are frolicking around it.
From up there, it is very easy to imagine
the ancient life of the burgh: you only have to look down and you can see a
small burgh that continues to live in the past, between the strokes of the Treo
Clock.
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| The Tower of the Castle (Photo by G. Lattanzi) |
An other beautiful burgh is not far from here: it is San Pietro della Jenca. It is a small village built of stone. In the past, it belonged to Camarda but today it is completely abandoned. San Pietro della Jenca was loved by Pope Wojtyla and now it is the first Pope John Paul II's Sanctuary.
