A town with the name "Grotta" is mentioned for the first time in the "Chronic" of Falcone Beneventano, in 1134, about the conquests of Roger II of Sicily.



The name "Grotta" has changed over the centuries; in fact since the twelfth century will take the name "Grotta Castagnara" (Crypta Castagnaria). This name remained until 1646, when the feudatory Scipione Macedonio was awarded by Philip IV of Spain the title of Duke of Grotta Castagnara. Not possessing certain information about Grottolella in the medieval period, it is possible to trace its history through the succession of feudal lords who alternated in the domain of the fief.  

It is reported that, around 1173, the fief passed to the Sanseverino family, of which a branch would later be called de Crypta: just a descendant of the latter, Warrior, we find news in 1239, when Frederick II entrusted him Gerardo Pelluce, prisoner of war. The chapel of Saint John the Baptist, annexed to a tower of the castle Macedonio, was built by Lorenzo Vaccaro at the behest of the Duchess Emilia Cioffi and her husband Nicola Macedonio. The chapel became family sepulchre and there rest the remains of the Duchess Emila Macedonio. Originally the chapel was adorned with majolica and marble made by the Neapolitan "riggiolaro" Ignazio Chiaiese several times collaborator before Lorenzo and later Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. The 18th century church of Santa Maria delle Grazie faces the medieval village and the chapel of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, demolished in the middle of this century, of which the remains of the apse and the sacristy are still visible today. Around this eighteenth-century chapel extends the second nucleus that develops along Corso Umberto I. It can be assumed that Grottolella at least until the second half of the nineteenth century did not have a great social developmentHowever, its location is of considerable importance for the control of commercial traffic between the provinces of Avellino and Benevento. Even today its economy is linked to small land ownership and the tertiary sector.