Around the grotto dedicated to Saint Michael an extraordinary and unique town has arisen in the course of some centuries. Monte Sant'Angelo has always been indissolubly united to the shrine and to its particular importance for all Christianity. We have already mentioned some historical events in the first pages of our guidebook; we can now only point out to visitors the most interesting and important monuments of the "Town of the Archangel".
It has been said that an inhabited nucleus rose around the shrine, but the first real neighborhood can be identified with the Junno district, which according to some scholars, would be even anterior to the era of the apparitions, even though the first historical information of its existence goes back to the 10th century.
One can still see evident signs of the old boundary wall of the mediaeval town (9th-13th centuries), subsequently destroyed because of the longitudinal development that Monte Sant'Angelo has had in the last two centuries.
The historical town centre is dominated by the high bulk of the castle that testifies to the presence and dominion of the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevins and the Aragons.