Senerchia is a
small municipality with just over 1000 inhabitants,
located 50 miles (80 km) SE of Naples and about 25
miles inland from the coastal city of Salerno.
Senerchia is the southernmost town in the province of
Avellino and borders directly on the province of
Salerno. It is in the rugged Picentine mountains on a
spur of Mt. Boschetiello. The town is at 2,000 feet
(600 meters) but surrounded by peaks of over 5,000
feet (1600 meters). The town overlooks the High Sele river valley. The location
has been the source of much of the site's interesting,
as well as tragic, history.
There were
pre-Roman settlements at Senerchia. Though other
etymologies have been offered, the most popular one
seems to be that the name 'Senerchia' stems from "Sena
Herclae," Latin for "Bosom of Hercules.” This may be a
sign that the settlement was once powerful, perhaps as
a Greek settlement or even a
Lucanian one. Senerchia is
most famous historically as the site of the final
defeat of slave/rebel Spartacus who fought to the
death against a stronger Roman force in 71 BC. It was
an epic battle that took place on the right bank of
the Sele river. Following the fall of the Roman
Empire, Senerchia was then the site of a large Lombard fortress, some ruins
of which are still visible (image, left); after
that, there were centuries of belonging to one
feudal domain or another. (photo:
L. Boffi)
Senerchia was
far enough up in the mountains to be out of the direct
path of Operation Avalanche, the Allied invasion at
the gulf of Salerno and the subsequent drive to Naples
in September, 1943. Yet the town has wartime stories
of its own to tell; witness the flight of The Buzzer,
a B-24 Liberator bomber that went down in the
mountains near the town during a routine ferry flight
from Grottaglie (near Taranto on the 'heel' of the
Italian boot) to Naples. In Senerchia there is a
memorial site and plaque inscribed to the flight crew
and passengers (photo, right). That story is told by
Larry Ray on the website of Napoli Underground, here.
photo: Napoli
Underground, NUg)
The most dramatic event of recent years came
on November 23, 1980. Senerchia was one of the small
towns destroyed by the massive “Irpinia earthquake”
that took almost 3,000 lives. Along with other towns
also near the epicenter, Senerchia simply crumbled. It
was not rebuilt, but there now is a new Senerchia
nearby with the anonymous streets, buildings and
squares that appear in the wake of such disasters.
Members of Napoli Underground went on a nature hike in
the hills and wound up at the old town—what was left
of it. (photos: NUg
