“My great-grandparents Giovanni and Angelina were from Ferrazzano,” Robert De Niro has stated time and again. Ferrazzano is a town in Molise, a mountainous region along the Adriatic Sea that’s north of Puglia, south of Abruzzo, and east of Campania. 

The actor always speaks of his origins with pride, which renders some Italians to believe that Ferrazzano, a small town just a few miles south of the region’s capital Campobasso, is more famous in the U.S. than in Italy. This stance is fitting for Molise, though. The discreet, understated region arrived on the radar in early 2020 when the New York Times included it in its annual round-up of 52 places to visit that year, which, as we all know, was then eclipsed by the pandemic.