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Salerno
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Comune di Salerno | |
|---|---|
 Municipal coat of arms |
|
| Country |  Italy |
| Region | Campania |
| Province | Salerno (SA) |
| Mayor | Vincenzo De Luca (since June 2006) |
| Elevation | 5 m (16 ft) |
| Area | 58 km² (22 sq mi) |
| Population (as of December 31, 2005) | |
| - Total | 146,324 |
| - Density | 2,523/km² (6,535/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET, UTC+1 |
| Coordinates | |
| Gentilic | Salernitani |
| Dialing code | 089 |
| Postal code | 84100 |
| Frazioni | Fuorni, Giovi, Matierno, Ogliara, Pastorano, Rufoli, Sant'Angelo, Sordina |
| Patron | St. Matthew |
| - Day | September 21 |
  Location of Salerno in Italy |
|
| Website: www.comune.salerno.it | |
Salerno is a town in Campania, south-western Italy, the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the gulf of the same name on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The main town in the Costiera Amalfitana (the part of the "Amalfi Coast on the Tyrrhenian, which includes famous towns of Amalfi, Positano, and others) is mostly known in recent history for having hosted the king of Italy, who escaped from Rome in 1943 after Italy negotiated a peace with the Allies in World War II. A brief so-called "government of the South" was then established in the town. Some of the Allied landings during Operation Avalanche (the invasion of Italy) occurred near Salerno.
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The area of what is now Salerno has been settled ever since pre-historical times, although the first certain signs of human presence date to the period between the ninth and sixth centuries BC. We know the Samnites-Etruscans city of Irna, situated across the Irno river, in today's Salernitan quarter of Fratte. This settlement represented an important base for Etruscan trade with the Greek colonies of Posidonia and Elea.
With the Roman advance in Campania, Irna began to lose its importance, being supplanted by the new Roman colony (194 BC) of Salernum, developing around an initial castrum. The new city, which gradually lost its military function in favour of its role as a trade center, was connected to Rome by the Via Popilia, which ran towards Lucania and Reggio Calabria.
Archaeological remains, although fragmentary, suggest the idea of a flourishing and lively city. Under Diocletianus, in the late third century AD, Salernum became the administrative centre of the Bruttia and Lucania province.
In the fifth century Salerno remained an important center under the Ostrogoth domination of Italy.
In the following century, during the Gothic Wars, the Goths were defeated by the Byzantines, whose domination however later lasted only fifteen years (from 553 to 568), before the Lombards invaded almost the whole peninsula. Like many coastal cities of southern city (Gaeta, Sorrento, Amalfi), Salerno initially remained untouched by the newcomers, falling only in 646. It subsequently became part of the Duchy of Benevento.
Under the Lombard dukes Salerno lived the most splendid period of its history.
In 774 Arechi II transferred the seat of the Duchy of Benevento to Salerno, in order to elude Charlemagne's offensive and to secure for himself the control of a strategic area, the centre of coastal and internal communications in Campania.
With Arechi II, Salerno grew to great splendour, becoming a centre of studies with its famous Medical School. The Lombard prince ordered the city to be fortified; the Castle on the Bonadies mountain had already been built with walls and towers. In 839 Salerno declared independent from Benevento, becoming the capital of a flourishing principality stretching out to Capua, northern Calabria and Puglia up to Taranto.
Around the year 1000 prince Guaimar IV annexed Amalfi, Sorrento, Gaeta and the whole duchy of Puglia and Calabria, starting to conceive a future unification of the whole southern Italy under Salerno's arms. The coins minted in the city circulated in all the Mediterranean, with the Opulenta Salernum wording to certify its richness.
However, the stability of the principate was continually shaken by the Saracen attacks and, most of all, by internal struggles. In 1056, one of the numerous plots led to the fall of Guaimar. His weaker son Gisulf II succeeded him, but the begin of the decline for the principality had begun.
On December 13, 1076 the Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard, who had married Guaimar IV's daughter Sichelgaita, besieged Salerno and defeated his brother-in-law Gisulf. This act put an end to hundreds of years of Lombard dominance, but did not check the city's vitality. In this period the royal palace (Castel Terracena) and the magnificent Arab-Gothic style cathedral were built, and science was boosted as the Salerno Medical School, considered the most ancient medical institution of European West, reached its maximum splendour.
Salerno played a conspicuous part in the fall of the Norman kingdom. After the Emperor Henry VI's invasion on behalf of his wife, Constance, the heiress to the kingdom, in 1191, Salerno surrendered and promised loyalty on the mere news of an incoming army. This so disgusted the archbishop, Nicholas of Ajello, that he abandoned the city and fled to Naples, which held out in a siege. In 1194, the situation reversed itself: Naples capitulated, along with most other cities of the Mezzogiorno, and only Salerno resisted. It was sacked and pillaged, much reducing its importance and prosperity. Henry had his reasons, though. He had entrusted Constance to the citizens and they had betrayed him and handed her over to King Tancred. Her combined treachery and stubbornness cost Salerno much after the Hohenstaufen conquest. Henry's son, Frederick II, moreover, issued a series of edicts that reduced Salerno's role in favour of Naples (in particular, the foundation of the University of Naples in that city).
Following the advice of Giovanni da Procida (a famous citizen of that time), King Manfred of Sicily, Frederick II's son, ordered a dock that still now has his name, to be built.
Moreover Manfred founded Saint Matthew's Fair, which was the most important in the south of Italy. After the Angevin conquest the city was particularly beautified by the work of the famous sculptor, Boboccio da Piperno, admired by Queen Consort Margherita of Durazzo who took up her abode in Salerno and was buried in the monumental tomb, which is today in the cathedral.
A noted medical school, or series of schools, existed at Salerno from at least the tenth century, and by the eleventh century it was widely acknowledged by contemporaries as the centre of medical knowledge in western Europe, in much the same way as Alexandria had been in the ancient world.
Around 1060 a Benedictine monk and native of Carthage, Constantine the African, arrived at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, 100 miles to the north of Salerno. With his knowledge of Arabic and Greek as well as Latin, he began to translate many of the medical texts from ancient Greece and Rome from the surviving Arabic translations into Latin. Constantine translated around twenty major works himself, such as Galen's Ars Parva, Hippocratic work including the Aphorisms and the Prognostics and the great encyclopedic work known as the patengi. However, his most significant translation was probably the Isogoge of Joanittius, which would serve as an introduction to medical theory and practise for centuries.
From the fourteenth century onwards, most of the Salerno province became the territory of the Princes of Sanseverino, powerful feudal lords who acted as real owners of the region. They accumulated an enormous political and administrative power and attracted artists and men of letters in their own princely palace. In the fifteenth century the city was the scene of battles between the Angevin and the Aragonese royal houses with whom the local lords took sides alternatingly.
In the first decades of the sixteenth century the last descendent of the Sanseverino princes was in conflict with the Aragonese viceroy, causing the ruin of the whole family and the beginning of a long period of decadence for the city. The years 1656, 1688 and 1694 represent sorrowful dates for Salerno: the plague and the earthquake which caused many victims.
A slow renewal of the city occurred in the eighteenth century with the end of the Spanish dominion and the construction of many refined houses and churches characterising the main streets of the historical centre.
In 1799 Salerno was incorporated into the Parthenopean Republic. During the Napoleonic era, first Joseph Bonaparte and then Joachim Murat ascended the Neapolitan throne. The latter decreed the closing of the Salerno Medical School, that had been declining for decades to the level of a theoretical school. In the same period even the religious Orders were suppressed and numerous ecclesiastical properties were confiscated.
The city expanded beyond the ancient walls and sea connections were potentiated as they represented an important road network that crossed the town connecting the eastern plain with the area leading to Vietri and Naples.
After the unification of Italy a slow urban development continued, many suburban areas were enlarged and large public and private buildings were created. The city went on developing till the Second World War.
In September 1943, Salerno was the scene of the landing of the allies and from February 12 to July 17, 1944 it gave hospitality to the Government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio.
The post-war period was difficult for all the Italian cities, but Salerno managed to improve little by little and to aim at becoming a modern European city. In recent years the town administration has taken great strides giving a great impulse to the revaluation of the whole urban territory.
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The renewal of the historical centre has been directed towards the rediscovery of the artistic and cultural treasures of an exceptional region.
Salerno appears as a welcoming community for tourists from all over the world with its historical centre, where it is possible to admire both the traces of its ancient history and the fervour of artisan shops and places for cultural and musical aggregation attended by thousands of people.
- The magnificent Cathedral.
- San Pietro in Vinculis.
- Sant'Augustine.
- Sant'Apollonia.
- St. Benedict was originally part of monastery from 7th-9th centuries, connected to a massive aqueduct whose remains are still visible today. After the Saracen destruction in 884, it was rebuilt by Abbot Angelarius with a nave and two aisles. Remains of an entrance quadriporticus can still be seen.
- Church of the Annunziata' (14th century).
- St. George is the most noteworthy Baroque church in Salerno, thanks to its high-quality frescoes by Francesco and Angelo Solimena (late seventeenth century). It is related to one of the most ancient monasteries of the city, dating back to the early ninth century, in which remains of apse frescoes have been recently brought to light.
- St. Gregory is asmall church in the city's historical centre, whose origins are still unclear. A document states its existence in 1058.
- St. Michael.
- The Arechi Castle (Castello di Arechi) is a massive castle commanding the city from a 300 m hill. It was enlarged by Arechi II over a pre-existing Roman-Byzantine construction. Today it houses rooms for exhibitions and congresses.
- The Terracena Castle was built by Robert Guiscard in 1076-1086 as a royal mansion, next to the Eastern walls. Only scarce remains (mainly tower-houses in tufa) can be seen today, as it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275.
- Palazzo D'Avossa (seventeenth century), with frescoes inspired by Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata.
- Province Archaeological Museum.
- Museo Didattico della Scuola Medica Salernitana.
- Diocesan Museum.
- Provincial Gallery.
- Archaeological Area of Fratte.
Salerno hosted the oldest university in Europe, the Schola Medica Salernitana, the most important source of medical knowledge in Europe in the early Middle Ages.
The University Institute of Magistero "Giovanni Cuomo", founded in 1944, received, therefore, the distinguished heritage of an ancient tradition. Since 1968, when the University of Salerno became public, enrollment has increased substantially. Today the two campuses of Fisciano and Baronissi take in over 40,000 students attending the wide range of subjects offered by the 10 Faculties: Economics, Pharmaceutics, Law, Engineering, Humanities, Foreign Languages, Political Science, Natural Science, Mathematics and Physics, Education Science and now Medicine and Surgery.
The economy of Salerno is mainly based on services and tourism, as most of the city's manufacturing base did not survive the economic crisis of the 1970s. The remaining ones are connected to pottery and food production and treatment.
The port of Salerno is one of the most active of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It moves some 7 millions of tons of goods a year, 60% of which is made up by containers.
