Solofra

Solofra

Solofra

Town in southern Italy

Solofra (Solofrano: Sulofra, IPA: [suˈloːfrə]) is a town and comune in the province of Avellino, in the Campania region of Southern Italy.

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Geography

The town is bordered by Aiello del Sabato, Calvanico (SA), Contrada, Montoro Superiore and Serino. Its frazioni are the villages of Sant'Agata Irpina and Sant'Andrea Apostolo.

Main sights

The Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo was built in the 16th-17th centuries.,[4] and has rich interior decoration with canvases by the Guarino family, and an altarpiece of Giovanni Battista Lama.

Economy

Solofra is known as one of Italy's main centre for the tanning of leather. Another activity present is chestnut cultivation, although for about a decade this has suffered a sharp drop in production due to the Gall wasp that now afflicts most of the chestnut groves in Italy.

Solofra Tanning District

Monument "The Tanner" in Solofra

The tanning district of Solofra extends over a territory of about 60 km², in the southwestern area of the province of Avellino. In addition to Solofra in includes the municipalities of Montoro and Serino, for a total of 35,000 inhabitants. This area is specialized, from a production point of view, in the tanning of sheep and goat hides, for a total of about 400 companies operating in the sector including tanneries, subcontractors and packaging manufacturers, 4,000 - 4,500 employees and an average annual turnover of 1,500 million euros.[5]

In the early 1980s, to find out about the methods of processing leathers, Osama bin Laden came to the city, who had long imported leather from Irpinia for his businesses in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[6]

The leathers on the iconic red vest worn by Michael Jackson in the 1982 music video for Thriller were manufactured in a Solofra tannery.[7]


References

  1. [1]
    "Elezioni a Solofra, Moretti si aggiudica la sfida all'ultimo voto" [Elections in Solofra, Moretti wins the challenge in the last vote]. Avellino Today (in Italian). 18 September 2023.
  2. [2]
    "Superficie di Comuni Province e Regioni italiane al 9 ottobre 2011". Italian National Institute of Statistics. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  3. [3]
    (in Italian) Source: Istat 2010
  4. [4]
    "La Collegiata di S. Michele Arcangelo" [The Collegiate Church of S. Michael the Archangel]. www.solofrastorica.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-11-11.
  5. [5]
    "Distretti Industriali Italiani" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 5 February 2004.
  6. [6]
    "Bin Laden, affari anche a Solofra" [Bin Laden, business also in Solofra]. La Repubblica. 19 October 2001.
  7. [7]
    Manganiello, Pasquale (5 September 2017). "Il mito di Michael Jackson rivive a Venezia: era "irpino" il giubbotto di Thriller". Irpinia News (in Italian).

Media related to Solofra at Wikimedia Commons



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