Teano
Encyclopedia
Teano is a town and comune
of Campania
, Italy
, in the province of Caserta
, 30 km north-west of that town on the main line to Rome
from Naples
. It stands at the south-east foot of an extinct volcano
, Rocca Monfina.
from Roccamonfina
. They probably submitted to Rome in 334 BC and their troops were grouped with those of Campania in the Roman army. Thus the garrison of Regium
, which in 280 attacked the citizens, consisted of one cohort of Sidicini and two of Campanians. Like Cales
, Teanum continued to have the right of coinage, and, like Suessa and Cales, remained faithful to Rome in both the Hannibalic and the Social wars. Its position gave it some military importance, and it was apparently made a colony by Claudius
, not by Augustus
. Strabo
speaks of it as the most important town on the Via Latina
, joined by a branch road from Suessa, of which remains still exist, and which continued east to Alife
.
In the 4th century Teano became seat of a diocese, and was later an important Lombard county, as part of the Duchy of Benevento
. The Benedictines had several property in the city, and here the monks from Montecassino took refuge when their abbey was destroyed in 883. Here one of the first document of vulgare Italian
was issued in 963.
and Victor Emanuel II, the King of Sardinia. Having wrested the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
from the Neapolitan Bourbons, Garibaldi shook Victor Emanuel's hand and hailed him as King of Italy
. Thus, Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy. The event is a popular subject for Italian patriotic statues and paintings.
was found in 1907. Of the famous amphitheater, cited by several sources, no traces remain.
Other sights include:
of A1 Milan-Naples highway. It can be also reached by road through SS.7 Via Appia and SS.6 Via Casilina
. The city is also served by a railway station.
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, in the province of Caserta
Caserta
Caserta is the capital of the province of Caserta in the Campania region of Italy. It is an important agricultural, commercial and industrial comune and city. Caserta is located on the edge of the Campanian plain at the foot of the Campanian Subapennine mountain range...
, 30 km north-west of that town on the main line to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
from Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. It stands at the south-east foot of an extinct volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
, Rocca Monfina.
Ancient times and Middle Ages
The ancient Teanum Sidicinum was the capital of the Oscan tribe of the Sidicini, which drove the AurunciAurunci
The Aurunci were an Italic population which lived in southern Italy from around the 1st millennium BC. Of Indo-European origin, their language belonged to the Oscan group...
from Roccamonfina
Roccamonfina
Roccamonfina is a comune in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 60 km northwest of Naples and about 40 km northwest of Caserta....
. They probably submitted to Rome in 334 BC and their troops were grouped with those of Campania in the Roman army. Thus the garrison of Regium
Regium
Regium may refer to:* Reggio Calabria, town in Calabria, Italy; Latin name Regium* Reggio Emilia, town in Emilia, Italy; Latin name Regium...
, which in 280 attacked the citizens, consisted of one cohort of Sidicini and two of Campanians. Like Cales
Cales
Cales was an ancient city of Campania, in today's comune of Calvi Risorta in southern Italy, belonging originally to the Aurunci/Ausoni, on the Via Latina.The Romans captured it in 335 BC and established a colony with Latin rights of 2,500 citizens...
, Teanum continued to have the right of coinage, and, like Suessa and Cales, remained faithful to Rome in both the Hannibalic and the Social wars. Its position gave it some military importance, and it was apparently made a colony by Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
, not by Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
speaks of it as the most important town on the Via Latina
Via Latina
The Via Latina was a Roman road of Italy, running southeast from Rome for about 200 kilometers.It led from the Porta Latina in the Aurelian walls of Rome to the pass of Mons Algidus; it was important in the early military history of Rome...
, joined by a branch road from Suessa, of which remains still exist, and which continued east to Alife
Alife (CE)
Alife is a town and comune in the province of Caserta , Italy. It is located in the Volturno valley, and is a flourishing center of agricultural production.-Ancient history:...
.
In the 4th century Teano became seat of a diocese, and was later an important Lombard county, as part of the Duchy of Benevento
Duchy of Benevento
The Duchy and later Principality of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in medieval Italy, centred on Benevento, a city central in the Mezzogiorno. Owing to the Ducatus Romanus of the popes, which cut it off from the rest of Lombard Italy, Benevento was from the first practically...
. The Benedictines had several property in the city, and here the monks from Montecassino took refuge when their abbey was destroyed in 883. Here one of the first document of vulgare Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
was issued in 963.
The "Handshake of Teano"
Teano was the site of the famous meeting of October 26, 1860, between Italian nationalist fighter Giuseppe GaribaldiGiuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
and Victor Emanuel II, the King of Sardinia. Having wrested the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
from the Neapolitan Bourbons, Garibaldi shook Victor Emanuel's hand and hailed him as King of Italy
King of Italy
King of Italy is a title adopted by many rulers of the Italian peninsula after the fall of the Roman Empire...
. Thus, Garibaldi sacrificed republican hopes for the sake of Italian unity under a monarchy. The event is a popular subject for Italian patriotic statues and paintings.
Main sights
Roman remains of Teano include the theatre (2nd century BC, rebuilt in the 2nd century AD), once one of the greatest in Italy with its 85 m of diameter, some extensive baths ("Le Caldarelle"), containing several statues, and some Roman dwellings. A tomb with a Christian mosaic representing the visit of the Three Wise Men to BethlehemBethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
was found in 1907. Of the famous amphitheater, cited by several sources, no traces remain.
Other sights include:
- the cathedralCathedralA cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
, begun around 1050 and completed in 1116, using Corinthian columns obtained from the ruins of the ancient town. It has a basilicaBasilicaThe Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...
plant with a nave and two aisles. After a fire, the church was rebuilt in 1610. The portico preceding the facade houses two sphinxSphinxA sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
es in red granite, coming from a pre-existing pagan temple. In the interior are a pergamum, with interesting parts from the original of the 12th century, and a 14th century Crucifix of Giotto's school, while the crypt houses a noteworthy Roman sarcophagus. - the Castle, built by the dukes of SessaSessa AuruncaSessa Aurunca is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta. It located on the south west slope of the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina, 40 km by rail west north west of Caserta and 30 km east of Formia....
in the 15th century, originating from a 4th century BC fortress. In the Bourbon era it was used as prison. - the Loggione, built over Roman baths in GothicGothic architectureGothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
style. - the church of S. Peter in Aquariis (14th century), built over a Palaeo-Christian edifice (in turn constructed over a Roman bath, whence the epithet in Aquariis, "on the water"). Recent restoration work has revealed precious ByzantineByzantine artByzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
frescoes depicting St. Agatha, St. Martha, and St. Mark and John the Evangelists. The belfry is a rare example of Byzantine architecture in southern Italy. - the church of St. Benedict, the most ancient holy edifice within the walls, built in the 9th century over a temple dedicated to Ceres. It has 12 granite and marble columns with antique capitals, and once housed precious Benedictine documents which went lost after a fire.
- Below the town, on the south-east, is the Palaeo-Christian church of S. Paride ad fontem. It was built over a Roman cisterna, whence the name (fons, fontis being Latin for a fountain or water source). Built originally in the 4th century, the current construction is from the 11th-12th centuries (extensively restored in 1988).
- the Franciscan convent of St. Anthony was in built in 1427, according the tradition, by the will of Bernardino da Siena, who also lived here for some years.
Transportation
Teano is 7 km from the gate of CapuaCapua
Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. Ancient Capua was situated where Santa Maria Capua Vetere is now...
of A1 Milan-Naples highway. It can be also reached by road through SS.7 Via Appia and SS.6 Via Casilina
Via Casilina
The Via Casilina was an ancient Roman road in Latium.It was created from the fusion of two other ancient Roman roads, the Via Latina and the Via Labicana. It connected Rome to ancient Casilinum . It entered Rome...
. The city is also served by a railway station.