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| Inhabitants'
name: Cutrofianesi |
On the civic
coat of arms of Cutrofiano there is a knight on a red horse. A blade of flint,
fragments of
 ceramics
and a hatchet dating to the Age of Bronze or Neolithic have been found in the
nearby of this village. The village was then founded by the Romans between the 5th
and the 7th century and was then sacked by Greeks, the Longobards and
Saracens. The name of the village could come from the Latin words “cultus
jani”, because there could have been a wood dedicated to this God. The name
could even come from “cutrubbi”, a dialect word that means the bottle where
people used to store their olive oil. In the 13th and the 14th
century the village was called ‘castrum’ (fortress) and it received those who
had survived bad diseases and the fugitives from the near villages when those
were invaded and destroyed. When the Normans came, the King Tancredi gave half
the
village to the Barone Panevino and the other half to Giovan Battista Lettere.
The villane was ruled by Raimondo Del Balzo, Maria D’Enghien, the Del Croce –
Capeces, and the Filomarinis. This family was specialized in the breeding of
thorough-bred and their horses were appreciated in all the kingdom. Among the
famous people of Cutrofiano we remember: Vincenzo Maria Masselli was born in
1816, became priest and specialized in History and Archaeology. He wrote poet
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