How Was Sulmona Built

Sulmona is made of one stone, laid out along one street, and dated by one earthquake.

The stone

The building material is the pale limestone of the Maiella, which is fine-grained and cuts cleanly. That is why the town's portals, rose windows and window surrounds are as elaborate as they are: the stone rewarded carving, and there were carvers here to do it.

The aqueduct

The arcade along Piazza Garibaldi was built in 1256, under Manfred, to bring water from the Morrone springs to the town's mills and fountains. It is medieval work in the Gothic manner, twenty-one arches long, and it still defines the square rather than decorating it.

One long street

Corso Ovidio runs the length of the old town between two gates and everything faces it. The plan is medieval, tight, and orientated along the valley rather than towards any centre.

The Annunziata facade

The best single building in the town is a record of its own construction: a Gothic portal of 1415 at one end, a Renaissance portal and windows in the middle, and a Baroque church front at the other, all in the same stone and all on one frontage.

After 1706

The earthquake of that year brought down most of the town. The rebuilding kept the medieval street plan and the surviving facades and put Baroque interiors behind them, which is why so many buildings here are older outside than in.

The modern edges

Post-war growth went out onto the flat valley floor in ordinary apartment blocks, leaving the old town intact by accident rather than by policy.