The square of Rocca San Felice opens, in front of the eyes of the tourist, as a suggestive scenery, of which the great linden tree occupies most of the view.
Under its fronds, the people of Rocca meet to talk, enjoy the fresh air and relax.
The centuries-old linden tree is the cornerstone of the village and could not be otherwise: it was planted during the Parthenopean Revolution as symbol of freedom.
Therefore, a tree that has represented the advent of a new civilization, whose purpose has animated the civil and ethical virtues of political democracy so much obstructed by the legitimate defenders of the alliance throne-altar, who opposed to the tree of freedom the cross with such an obscurantism to make believe to the people that the ideals of freedom, equality and republican democracy were antithetical to Christianity, when instead the democratic ideas were the essence of the Gospel.
On the right of the linden tree, in the square, you can admire the harmonic series of stone arches, on which the beautiful loggia of the Palace De Antonellis-Villani lays down.
The left side is wonderful as much with the classical monumental fountain.
In front of the square, there are ‘re muredde’, stone walls that include the staircase that leads to the Mother Church and then to the Castle.
Therefore, Rocca San Felice is a centuries-old, majestic and protective scenery. The solemn linden tree carpets the square with sacredness. It seems to emanate the poetic spirit that has inspired revolutionary verses, like those written by Eugenio Romeo:
‘Long life to the tree of our freedom;
Rise, audacious plant;
Erect up the trunk and the branches,
And despise the vain assault
Of enemy cruelty.
You collect in the pleasant shadow
these reborn people,
who already the raised down
of their own freedom’.
Verses that became a kind of national hymn of the Neapolitan Republic in 1799.
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