Scapoli

The borgo sits at 668m in the Mainarde, the limestone massif that forms the western edge of the national park spanning Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. The zampogna itself is a goat-or-sheep-skin bag with two melody chanters and two drones, traditionally played in pairs at Christmas pastorali, the shepherds' processions. Scapoli's link to the instrument goes back to at least the 18th century, when shepherds wintering their flocks on the Roman Campagna carried the instruments down from these mountains and sold them in Naples and Rome. That is how a mountain craft became a valley trade: the raw material and the customers came from elsewhere, but the workshops stayed fixed in the centro, passed down through the same families to today, with prices from €600 to €2,500 depending on size and decoration.

Up-valley to the west, the Mainarde peaks, Monte Marrone and Monte Cavallo, rise past 2,000m, and the source of the Volturno river lies 5 km west at Rocchetta a Volturno. The national park stretches across the border into Abruzzo, taking in Camosciara and Forca d'Acero. The same slopes that shelter the village also feed the river draining the wider area, and the park boundary makes the Mainarde one continuous landscape rather than a local backdrop.

The borgo is small and ultraperiferico: one trattoria, no petrol station, no ATM. Whoever comes for the day brings what is needed. Food is Molisan-mountain, pampanella, caciocavallo, pasta alla chitarra with wild boar, the local Tintilia red, and on festival weekend the centro turns into one open-air kitchen alongside the concerts and workshops.

What holds the place together is the pairing of an isolated mountain setting with a trade that only makes sense because of that isolation: a village too remote to live off anything but a craft it could carry out on foot, still practiced by the same families in the same streets.