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Isernia Province
This interior province of the mountainous region of
Molise is sparsely populated, though well known for
its crafts.
The province has been home to human habitation as far
back as 700,000 years ago, and is home to one of the
most ancient sites - with evidence that fire was deliberately
used. Isernia province was created from the now wholly
coastal Campobasso province in the early 1970s.
Allied Forces destroyed many bridges in the province
in an effort to keep Germans from retreating in 1943.
The capital and namesake city of Isernia is much larger
than any other city in the province and has been in
existence since Roman times when it was a colony known
as Aesernia, Eserninus or Serni. The city itself rises
up nearly half a kilometre from the valley below. On
either side of the town, the Carpino and Sordo rivers
flow into a fertile valley below. Between wars and
earthquakes, the town has been savaged just about every
hundred years for the few thousand people have insisted
upon living there.
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