Provincia di Avellino
Principato Ultra survives in the filing system
Avellino has one of the longest civil runs in Italy — 1809 to 1970 — and the reason a search here fails is almost never absence. It is the district. The fond is organised around the three historic districts of Avellino, Ariano Irpino and Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, and the coverage dates differ for each. Before any of that, there is the name: until unification this was Principato Ultra, and a researcher who searches only for Avellino will miss half the nineteenth century.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Avellino
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Ariano Irpino
Atripalda
Avella
Avellino
Castel Baronia
Cervinara
Grottaminarda
Lioni
Mercogliano
Mirabella Eclano
Monteforte Irpino
Montella
Serino
Solofra
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Avellino holds
The central fond is Stato civile di Avellino, 1809-1970 — second copies of birth, marriage, death and citizenship registers from the comuni of the district of Avellino, and from the districts of Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Ariano Irpino until 1945. A hundred and sixty years is among the longest runs any Italian state archive offers.
The allegati are held unevenly and the dates are worth noting exactly: for the Avellino district from 1956, and for Ariano Irpino for 1867/1957. They are not a continuous series across the province.
For Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Ariano there is a separate fond of Processetti matrimoniali, 1862-1865, analytically inventoried — meaning item-level, searchable by name. For those two districts in those four years, this is the most efficient source in the archive.
Levy records are organised on the same three-district structure. Esiti di leva della provincia di Avellino covers classes 1853-1948, divided until 1923 into Avellino (1871-1948), Ariano Irpino (1867-1948) and Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi (1853-1948). Note that Sant'Angelo's run starts eighteen years before Avellino's.
Ruoli matricolari del distretto di Avellino hold men enrolled in the Italian army, classes 1848-1928 and 1939-1948, bound in volumes and ordered by matricular number — and they arrived by transfer from the Distretto militare di Salerno, so the two provinces' military paperwork is connected.
Digitisation is marked Completa — which for a hundred and sixty years of registers is a considerable amount of material online.
Continue your research
Identify the district first: Avellino, Ariano Irpino or Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi. Their date ranges differ.
Archivio di Stato di Avellino on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its holdings, district by district.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
Three districts, three sets of dates
Work out which of the three districts the comune belonged to. It governs everything.
The civil fond holds second copies of birth, marriage, death and citizenship registers from the comuni of the Avellino district, and from Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Ariano Irpino until 1945. The overall run reaches 1970, but not uniformly — the later years are Avellino district.
The allegati follow a different pattern again: held for the Avellino district from 1956, and for Ariano Irpino for 1867/1957. For Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Ariano there is a separate fond of Processetti matrimoniali, 1862-1865, analytically inventoried, which means it can be searched by name rather than read through.
And remember the older name. For the first half of the nineteenth century the province is Principato Ultra, and much material is catalogued under it. Ariano Irpino was the seat of a distretto in its own right under the Kingdom, which is why it behaves as a separate archival unit two centuries later.
The province
Principato Ultra, and a province shaken twice
The State Archives document the Intendenza di Principato Ultra, seated at Avellino, as instituted by the law of 8 August 1806, when the Kingdom was divided into provinces and districts. Ultra — the further principality — distinguished it from Principato Citeriore, which became Salerno. That is the name to search under before 1861.
The territory is Irpinia, named for the Hirpini, the Samnite people whose emblem was the wolf. It is upland, forested and poor, a country of small comuni strung along ridges between the Sabato, Calore and Ofanto valleys. It has no coast and never had a city of any size: Avellino itself was a modest provincial seat, and the province's life happened in villages of a few hundred to a few thousand people.
Two earthquakes define its modern record. The Irpinia earthquake of 23 July 1930 killed some fifteen hundred people across the province. The earthquake of 23 November 1980, centred between Avellino and Potenza, killed nearly three thousand, destroyed whole comuni and depopulated others permanently — Conza, Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, Lioni and Laviano among them. Municipal archives were lost, town centres were abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere, and some comuni exist today on a different site from the one in the records.
Emigration was heavy from the 1880s and heavy again after 1980. For many American families, Irpinia is the place the paperwork points to and the village no longer looks as the photographs show it.
Culture & traditions
Irpinia, the Baronia and the wine ridges
The province divides by valley, and the divisions are old enough to show in dialect and in marriage patterns.
The Baronia in the north-east — Castel Baronia, Carife, San Nicola Baronia, San Sossio, Vallata, with Trevico on its ridge — takes its name from the medieval barony of Vico and was administered as a unit long after the barony ended. Families there intermarried across all of it, so a surname that goes quiet in one comune often reappears in the next.
The Ufita and Ariano country to the north looks toward Foggia and Benevento, and Ariano Irpino was a district seat with a diocese of its own.
The wine ridges around Taurasi, Montemarano and Castelfranci grow Aglianico, and Tufo and Lapio the white grapes — Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino. These are among the oldest documented vineyards in the south, and the sulphur mines at Tufo added an industrial population in the nineteenth century.
The Montella and Bagnoli uplands to the south are chestnut and pasture country on the edge of the Picentini, with transhumance routes toward Salerno.
The Alta Irpinia around Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and Lioni was hit hardest in 1980, and its demographic history has a sharp break in it that no earlier record predicts.
Province established
1806
Comuni covered
118
Historic names
Principato Ultra · Distretto di Avellino · Distretto di Ariano · Distretto di Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi · Baronia di Vico
Languages & dialects
Italian · Irpino · Baronia and Ufita varieties · Campano-Lucanian influence in the Alta Irpinia
Traditions
Montevergine and the Juta · Taurasi and Greco di Tufo · chestnuts of Montella · the tammorra and Irpinian song · earthquakes of 1930 and 1980
The State Archives of Avellino documents the Intendenza di Principato Ultra, seated at Avellino, as instituted by the law of 8 August 1806 when the Kingdom was divided into provinces and districts.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Avellino
Name the district before the comune. Avellino, Ariano Irpino or Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi decides which date ranges apply to the civil registers, the allegati and the levy lists alike, and the three do not align.
If the family is from Sant'Angelo or Ariano and the event falls in 1862-1865, ask for the processetti fond by name — it is inventoried item by item, which almost nothing else here is.
For anything before 1861, search under Principato Ultra as well as Avellino. And when a municipal record is missing from the Alta Irpinia, check the date against 1930 and 1980 before assuming it was never made. Confirm access arrangements when you write ahead.
What to see
The Baronia — Castel Baronia, Carife, San Nicola, San Sossio, Vallata and Trevico on its ridge.
Ariano Irpino — a district seat and diocese in its own right, and the northern gateway of the province.
The wine ridges — Taurasi, Tufo, Lapio and Montemarano, Aglianico and Greco country.
Montella and Bagnoli Irpino — chestnut woods and upland pasture on the edge of the Picentini.
Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi and the Alta Irpinia — the epicentre country of 1980, rebuilt.
Mercogliano and Montevergine — the sanctuary above Avellino, a pilgrimage site for the whole province.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Avellino represented?
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