Seven water mill plants were found here, sometimes referred to by the name of the waterway that fed them...#tuttitaly
Exploring the province of Avellino, let's visit Lioni, an Italian town with 6141 inhabitants. The city is part of the Regional Park of the Picentini Mountains.
The toponym probably derives from the person who owns those lands, Leo, more precisely from the genitive "Leonis,"
that is, "of Leo," which was used to identify the land belonging to his family. Various scholars advance other theories. One of the most plausible seems to be the hypothesis that Lioni takes its name from an ancient monument in which lions are portrayed.
The lion is a funerary statue from the Roman period (1st century BC-2nd century AD). In the Middle Ages, it became the emblem of the village, giving it, together with the twin statue destroyed during the earthquake of 1732, the name: Casale Leonum or de Leonibus, which later became Li Liuni, Leoni, Lioni.
Even today, in front of the town hall, one can admire one of the two stone lions, which survived the earthquake of 1732.
Watermills have also been found in Lioni. For example, the Alifano Mill was built in the 19th century and remained in operation until the 1920s. The structure includes a double milling system with horizontal wheels, a dual feeding channel, a double drop tower, and a double pair of millstones. Next to it, you can see the ruins of another older mill that probably worked with vertical wheels.
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