Cerreto Sannita

Cerreto Sannita sits in the Titerno valley of the Sannio, fifty-five kilometers northeast of Naples, with the Matese massif rising behind. The town was rebuilt at the order of Count Marzio Carafa, his brother Marino, and Bishop Giovanni Battista de Bellis, and the resulting grid runs orthogonally around a central piazza, a rare case of late-baroque urban planning in southern Italy. The other anchor is ceramics, an industry the town has long shared with its neighbour.

Workshops in both places have produced majolica since at least the sixteenth century, and the State Art Institute revived the craft in the mid-twentieth. Workshops still turn out ceremonial plates, lobed jugs, apothecary jars and riggiole tiles painted with wind-rose and garland motifs. The town is a Bandiera Arancione, a Cittaslow, and one of Italy's official Città della Ceramica. What results is a town whose street plan and whose craft both trace back to the same recovery: one rebuilt the ground it stands on, the other kept its hands busy on top of it.