The fortress and the drop Lauria is castled on the east side of the Noce valley on which it windy overlooks. There is a powerful figure that strikes when you see the small town: the fortress in which are located Ruggero’s castle and the Madonna dell’Armo sanctuary. This is the most anciently populated place where a monastic settlement arose (in the XI cent.), from which the original nucleus of the town developed. The massacre Natural and age-old reference centre of a very large territory, it was since the Middle Ages a countship and a de facto Episcopal location. The town over the years had a setback because of the 1806 Lauria massacre. The defeat induced the displacement of all the state services for the benefit of the neighboring and less important towns. The original sources – strongly penalized by the city archive destruction during the massacre – mention Lauria for the first time in the X cent. However it appears unlikely that its area (passed trough by the ancient Roman arterial road, Via Popilia) was uninhabited until the X cent. 
The loyalist of Manfredi Probably it was the Norman who settled in the area called Ravita, (from the Arabic “Rabit”-which means “near territory”) and constructed the castle “of Ruggeiro”. Lauria was at the time the political and economical centre of the Noce valley. Progenitor of the Norman dynasty is Gibel de Loira, followed by Riccardo, the loyalist of King Manfredi. It is exactly with Riccardo that the city became, even if for a few years, the first seats of the Basilicata Giustizierato. The eldest of them, Ruggiero (link) became famous because of his designation as admiral of Aragón by Pietro III. Source: www.wikipedia.it
