Excover | Franco Baranello - History of Campobasso

In 19th century, the road that Franco Baranello is mentioning in the latest Excover interview, was enriched with a particular craftsmanship activities, leather tanning. Leather tanning provokes unpleasant smells, so due to this problem, all tanneries were transferred outside the city walls to what was then named as „Via delle concerie“ or „Road of the tanneries“, today known as „via Marconi“. This road was chosen because of a particular reason - the path was slightly slopping. This condition allowed waste waters used in tanning processes to be poured in the road and to flow downhill to the vegetable gardens area in Fontana Vecchia. Then, there was the smell problem. Here, in via Marconi we have an inlet near the corner behind the church of Santa Maria della Croce, creating a small curve in this road. This particular condition allows aeriation, in fact here there is always a soft wind, also in summer months. In those times, this wind swept away the smell caused by tanning activities. In this particular place was situated the only building outside the city walls, called Taverna del Procaccio, which was basically a porter. This place was made the change of horses that carried the mail from Naples. The route was from Naples to Vasto during the journey there were these inns where the Procaccio stopped to distribute local mail. I bought half this building which was then raised and turned into a house. I tried to preserve the elements that I found as some stones, the well and especially the garden. All this happened until the end of 1700. We can say that the first post office of Campobasso was located here in 1600.