HISTORY

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Much has been written about the foundation of Salerno "a little above the sea", without however having certain proofs to support the various theories. Locally Salerno was born after. After Paestum (around 600 BC), after Nuceria (6th century BC), after Vietri, after Pontecagnano (between the 9th and 8th centuries BC) MAP. So the history of the city can be read only under the lens of different previous circumstances. We too will try to give our interpretation, starting from some assumptions:

  • With all probability there were  -in the same area- italic villages and hamlets called "Salernum" older than the Roman castrum and oppidum;
  • the Vietri/Salerno area is particularly favored by an excellent geographical position, which allowed it, in ancient times, to dominate the trade that took place in the gulf between Campania and Lucania on the sea routes connecting the Levantine markets and those of the western Mediterranean, and then ensured them;
  • the historical city extends from the hill to the sea, but the part that best lent itself to safely host a starting colonial settlement was certainly the Plaium Montis, a well protected area and difficult to reach from the hinterland, at the foot of the Bonadies hills, slightly sloping towards the sea, between the Fusandola streams, to the west, and the San Eremita to the east;
  • the continuous shift, over the centuries, of the gravitational point of the city, from the north-south axis to the east-west axis, first on the Plaium Montis and then along the coast line;
  • another factor is the action of water which, in the form of simple streams or ruinous floods, descends from the Bonadies hills and creates multiple layers of debris;
  • starting from the Roman wooden barracks until the 15th century, most of the private house structures were made entirely of wood, a material that allowed exceptional flexibility and substitutability, but also (according to the knowledge of the time) a relatively poor resistance to exceptional climatic events such as floods and earthquakes. Therefore it was relatively easy to lose traces of the original structures, as well as of the original road system, when the new masonry buildings occupied lots of land perhaps coming from different old owners and merged into a single new landlord;
  • the founding myth of the Schola Salerni confirm the importance of contact among languages and the activity of translation for interreligious and intercultural dialogue and the development of knowledge.

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