Perdifumo

Located at 480 meters above the sea level, Perdifumo enjoys some of the best views from uphill of the Cilento National Park. The name Perdifumo derives from the Medieval Latin pes de flumine (at the feet of the river).

During XI century, San Arcangelo (small village nearby the homonym monastery) vassals, moved down to the valley in a place more suitable for cultivation. This happened because no more fears and menaces for foreign and barbarian people were occurring in the local area: all this used to be the normal and dangerous life for the local population because of the several invasions and destructions of the villages. This is why the local population decided to move up to the mountain, finding help and becoming refugee of the monastery, which was the only way to survive from calamities and famine. This new urban settlement allowed them to find rich springs, as well as to cut short the daily trip from the village to the fields.

In 1077, when the Normans conquered Salerno, Perdifumo already existed irrespective of St Arcangelo. Throughout the ages, Perdifumo has been governed by several important local families.

Points of interest are:

• the public fountain with the ancient wash-tubs, dated back to 1500;
• St Maria degli Angeli convent dated back to 1636, in which you will find many works of art, a wonderful Cross, and some sixteenth-century statues;
• Parish Church of St Sistus II (XVI century.), with admirable recent frescos, a 1600 holy water stoup, a seventeenth-century imposing and valuable altar, and a statue dedicated to Madonna del Rosario;
• Palazzo Baronale with a circular pigeon coop, surrounded by a beautiful garden;
• Palazzo Giardulli, which enclose a typical suggestive eighteenth-century oil mill.

Every summer Perdifumo gets alive thanks to a variety of festivities: the main one is St Giacomo, the patron saint, in July; Madonna del Rosario, is celebrated the Tuesday after Pentecost, when the sacred effigy is carried out in a procession on boat decorated with flowers.