1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avellino

AVELLINO, a city and episcopal see of Campania, Italy, the capital of the province of Avellino, 1150 ft. above sea-level, 28 m. direct and 59 m. by rail E.N.E. of Naples, at the foot of Monte Vergine. Pop. (1901) 23,760. There are ruins of the castle constructed in the 9th or 10th century, in which the antipope Anacletus II. crowned Count Roger II. king of Sicily and Apulia. Avellino is the junction of lines to Benevento and Rocchetta S. Antonio. The name is derived from the ancient Abellinum, the ruins of which lie 21/2 m. north-east, close to the village of Atripalda, and consist of remains of city walls and an amphitheatre in opus reticulatum, i.e. of the early imperial period, when Abellinum appears to have been the chief place of a tribe, to which belonged also the independent communities of the Abellinates cognomine Protropi among the Hirpini, and the Abellinates cognominati Marsi among the Apulians (Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, ii. 822). It lay on the boundary of Campania and the territory of the Hirpini, at the junction of the roads from Nola (and perhaps also from Suessula) and Salernum to Beneventum.

The Monte Vergine (4165 ft.) lies 4 m. to the N.W. of Avellino; upon the summit is a sanctuary of the Virgin, founded in 1119, which contains a miraculous picture attributed to S. Luke (the greatest festival is on the 8th of September). The present church is baroque in style, but contains some works of art of earlier periods. The important archives have been transported to Naples.  (T. As.)