WTI Magazine #85    2016 November 21
Author : I borghi più belli d'Italia      Translation by:

One of the best preserved village of Molise with planning system that still reflects the original one, to make it interesting is the small village of stoves, of course excluding the buildings recently built, anonymous and of poor quality, that extends outside of the historic center. It is almost a miracle that the curtain wall is preserved, even if the towers were adapted to the needs of the inhabitants. Although not having buildings of particular architectural recalls, this small village is therefore valuable for the compactness of its historic urban structure, a rarity in other centers in this region.

Its existence is known from the year 981, when in a judicial dispute about the castles at the service of the abbey of San Vincenzo al Volturno, also enters the castellum quod Vantra nominatur, the same as in another part of the document is called castle de Vantra quod dicitur Fornellu.

The titling to the Archangel Saint Michael of the mother church suggests that the hill on which it stands has seen the passage and the ruling of the Longobards. The highest part of the village is occupied by religious authorities and by the civil Authority, represented by baronial palace that repeats in large part the system of the ancient Lombard castle.

The main door of access to the historical center was equipped with a drawbridge that rose on the moat. One enters the village even through Porta Castello and Porta Nova, inputs so small as to prevent access to motor vehicles. The baronial palace, built on the castle walls at the door of Umberto I square, has two circular norman incorporated towers with the main façade, whose characters of strict symmetry are softened by elements late baroque in the brackets of the balconies. To the family Laurelli must be the latest changes to the palace, such as the cant close to the mother church.

The church of San Michele Arcangelo, on which stands the bell tower of 1738, was consecrated in 1746. The recent tampering with the high cover to time nor has betrayed the original shapes; they remain to see the statue of San Michele and three paintings of the eighteenth century recently restored. The church of St. Peter the Martyr will keep the memory of the beautiful renaissance portal and the marble inlays of antependium that decorates the baroque altar. In the square on which overlooks the church, is located the fountain dedicated to summer, a copy of the sculpture that the French Le Mathurin Moreau presented to the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1855. Aluminum Frames and flooring to queue of Pavone does not do justice to the village, which can do much more to promote its type "winding total" ,the compactness, namely, that of its urban core within the ancient walls.

LOCAL PRODUCT
City of the oil, stove and surrounded by olive trees and produces a fruity oil and light. A mill at the entrance of the village is a cooperative marketing testify to the importance of this product for the local economy. In the territory you will also find truffles, as in other areas of the Molise. Finally, there are cultivated legumes endangered along the river di Vandra.

LOCAL DISHES
It begins - strictly in dialect - with taccunell and fasciuel (a paste without eggs, cut into squares, seasoned with sautéed in olive oil, garlic and beans), then sciurc Coccia (zucchini flowers in batterfried) and then r' suffritt (entrails or offal fried lamb with potatoes and peppers) or casc' and ova (liver kid with eggs and cheese). It closes with the sweet, which is different for every season: a carnival the cioffe (flakes of pastry fried), at Easter the pastiera (tart rice cooked in milk) and r' sciaiun (calzones stuffed with various types of cheeses and vegetables), at Christmas the cerchiata (balls of sweet pastry with honey) and "r sciusc" (bread dough and potatoes, fried and sprinkled with sugar).

THE NAME
The assumption most accredited and is that the castle of the X century mentioned with the name of Bantra in Chronicon Vulturnense and di Vandra in subsequent documents, has changed its name to cooking stove in the XI century and Stoves around in the middle of the XVIII. THE etymology is to connect to the presence in the territory of furnaces for bricks and tiles or ovens for the processing of metals.