Perito

Perito sits on a hill above the Alento river valley, inside the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park. The local historian Emilio Gatto traced the founders to refugees from ancient Velia, the Greek polis below the coast, hiding from Saracen raids; the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis records the village between the tenth century and 1137. In the middle ages it served as a fortified outpost over the valleys below.

From 1801 to 1860 it was a hamlet of Orria, then a separate commune from 1850. Perito made its name through polvere nera, black powder, ground from local sulphur and saltpetre with sandstone mortars and wooden pestles, used for hunting, defense and, in the nineteenth century, by Bourbon-era brigands. The Chiesa di San Nicola di Bari, built around 1550 and inaugurated in February 1563, rises behind a bell tower reused from an Angevin watch tower. The commune is a Cittaslow member.