Valva: village and Villa d'Ayala

Valva overlooks the Upper Sele Valley from a hilltop. Its old lanes and tightly grouped houses reflect its defensive past. Just outside the historic centre, Villa d'Ayala and its 17-hectare park are the main reason to visit, with formal Italian gardens, woodland, statues and fountains.

Valva was used as a headquarters by German General Kesselring during the Second World War and was later occupied by American forces. The 1980 earthquake badly damaged the town; reconstruction sought to retain the appearance of its old streets. The surrounding landscape includes oak, beech, chestnut and pine woods, with wildlife such as wild boar, foxes and birds of prey.

History of Valva

Settlement in the area goes back at least to protohistoric times. In the Roman period, the Compsa–Volcei road crossed this territory, connecting the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian sides of the peninsula. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, settlements moved towards the mountains, where caves offered shelter. The mountain later also acquired religious importance.

Under the Normans, Valva had a priory linked to the Benedictine abbey of San Benedetto in Salerno. The Valva family built fortifications. Giuseppe Maria Valva began work on the park and villa in the late eighteenth century; after his death without heirs in 1831, the estate passed to the d'Ayala family. Francesco Saverio d'Ayala completed the project. The villa was donated to the Order of Malta after the death of the last d'Ayala in 1959.

Monuments and natural sites

• Villa d'Ayala and its 17-hectare park: formal gardens, centuries-old trees, allegorical sculptures, fountains and an open-air theatre. The villa served as a field hospital and headquarters during the Second World War.
• The Church of San Giacomo Apostolo, built in 1708, with a wooden bust of Saint James.
• Palazzo Marcelli, which hosted the scholar Lorenzo Giustiniani.
• The eighteenth-century Chapel of Sant'Antonio and the early fifteenth-century fresco of the Madonna delle Grazie.
• The rock-cut settlement of San Michele, with five altars arranged around the shrine, and the early eighteenth-century Chapel of San Biagio.
• Valva Vecchia, the old fortress on a high promontory, and the WWF area at San Biagio and Laghetto.