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Alberona is located on the hills of the northern “Daunia”, marking, with its territory, the border between Puglia and Campania. The name “Alberona” indicates the abundance of forests that has characterized, during the centuries, the Alberona’s area, as evidenced by the discovery of an inscription at the end of the second century where mention is made of the “College of dendrofori.”
In its territory, archaeological research has identified a number of sites along the ancient roads, which have documented the use through time and have attested to other branches which articulated the territory. All the documentation has highlighted the importance of this area to the west of Lucera for communications with the Sannio and Irpinia area, and witnessed the use of internal roads for transhumance since the Bronze Age.
Probably also because of its location astride an area so important to the viability, Alberona, 1196, was a stronghold of the Templars, then passed, with the suppression of the order in 1312, the Knights of St. John of Malta said to abolition of feudalism. Roads and communications seem to be the common thread in the history of Alberona, a land of passage for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, as witnessed by the presence of the cult of Saint James of Compostela among its patron saints, whose statue is kept in the Mother Church.
Alberona, with its structure pigeonholed the foothills of Mount Stilo, is identifiable as the perched village. These villages, since the high Middle Ages, they become an integral element of the passage Italian agriculture ministry. The people, in fact, the need for defense from raids and invasions and to protect themselves from rising plain and therefore malaria, took refuge in the mountains.
The village was surrounded by walls whose memory is to be found in the names of some districts, such as, for example, the “wall of earth” where “earth” is used in the sense of the most ancient part of the country, and also of belonging.
The tower called the “Grand Prior”, part of the ancient walls, overlooks the valley through which the tributaries of the river Salsola, and it stands to guard the lines of communication with the Sannio, one of which is the way of “Valicaturo.” This path through the fields of “religion”, as defined in the miscellany of six volumes, preserved in the archives of the Parish of Alberona, because they belong to the Knights Templars and Hospitallers below, fields rich with vineyards and woods married until the advent of ‘mechanized agriculture.