La Church of San Nicandro is located near the Borgo di Vicalvi, along the Vandra state road and near the crossroads for Alvito.
It was built at the beginning of the 4th cent. - in Constantinian times, after the Edict of Milan in 313 - by Bishop Maximus of Atina to honour the Saint who was martyred under Diocletian, Emperor from 284 to 305 AD.
According to tradition, Nicander, a Roman soldier, converted to the Christianity and from then on refused to worship pagan deities and offer sacrifices to them. He was therefore beheaded around 300 together with his companion Marcianus (the church dedicated to him is in Atina). His wife Daria and their son were also martyred with him after three days because they refused to renounce their Christian faith.
The bodies of the four were taken to Venafro, but were soon brought back to the place of martyrdom where a basilica was built, which, as soon as it was built, was immediately the object of great devotion. In the following centuries, a convent of Benedictine nuns was annexed to the church dedicated to San Nicandro, which was the object of several raids by brigands and armies. This was the reason why, in the Lombard era, the nunnery was moved to a protected position near the castle (built in this period, 9th-10th centuries): the castle of Vicalvi therefore became a “redutto de Monache, che erano in Santo Nicandro giù nel plano et se retirorno suso al tempo delle turbolentie o altri sospetti. But then the wars happened, and they fortified themselves there a little.” (Discrittione d'Alvito et suo Contato raccolta parte dal trovato, parte dal visto et parte dallo inteso per Giulio Prudentio d'Alvito (1574), in appendix to SANTORO 1908, pp. 225 and 247; DE MINICIS 1976-77, p. 117; ANTONELLI 1986, pp. 142-144; RIZZELLO 1990, p. 56; RIZZELLO 1998, p. 111).
However, the choice led to the gradual decay of the church and the adjoining convent due to neglect and several earthquakes.
Documents relating to pastoral visits by the Bishop of Sora show that it was already in a poor state of repair in the 18th century.
The last news dates back to 1801 when Monsignor Colaianni, on visiting it, noted that the altar was in a bad state and that even the statue of the saint was missing.
The church is seven metres long, eleven metres wide and seven metres high.
On the left corner of the façade is still a stone with a Latin inscription commemorating a freedman who died at the age of 22, whom his grieving mother wished to remember (1st century AD).
It is certainly a stone taken from a pagan tomb in the vicinity and reused as building material. In fact, a Roman necropolis stood on the site already in the early imperial age, as documented by other contemporary epigraphs and the funerary lion found nearby in the 1970s.
