Rosanna Alaggio - Medieval Scholar - 2018
Francescoantonio D’orilia - Arts administrator - 2018

This is the story of a migration, a journey of monks, peasants and artisans fleeing from Sicily and Calabria in the early ninth century, in search of salvation and stability. But most importantly it is the story of our home — the Vallo di Diano, not taught in our schools, stripping the identity of our children.

Men and women who have contributed to instilling a strong imprint on the "Terre dei Principi", the Lombard principality of Salerno, deeply influencing the process of formation of the historical landscape of a large part of southern Italy.

Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Campania share a fragment of historical memory too often forgotten, but above all preserve the legacy produced by an encounter between different civilizations and an unprecedented cultural syncretism, which manifests itself vividly in the fragments of the surviving frescoes, among the cracks of the ruins of ancient monasteries, in traditions, in devotional forms.