Ariano Irpino
Encyclopedia
Ariano Irpino is a municipality in the province of Avellino
, in the Campania
region of Italy
on the railway between Benevento
and Foggia
, c. 40 km east of the former.
, Ariano Irpino is practically centred between the Adriatic Sea
and the Tyrrhenian Sea
. Formerly called just Ariano, it was built on three hills, and for that reason it is also known as Città del Tricolle (City of the Three Hills). From 1868 to 1930, when it became part of Campania, it was known as Ariano di Puglia. Irpinia
is the name given to the area of the Apennine Mountains
around Avellino. The name derives from the Oscan word hirpus
, meaning wolf.
Ariano lies in the centre of a fertile district, but has no buildings of importance, as it has often been devastated by earthquakes. A considerable part of the population still dwelled in caves until 1911. It has been supposed to occupy the site of Aequum Tuticum, an ancient Samnite
town which became a post-station on the Via Traiana
in Roman
times; but this should probably be sought at S. Eleuterio 51 miles (82 km) north. It was a military position of some importance in the Middle Ages
. c. 20 km south-south-east is the Sorgente Mefita, identical with the pools of Ampsanctus
.
(circa 7000 BC) and continued to be inhabited until around 900 BC. Successively a tribe of the brave Samnites, the Hirpini
, the warriors of the wolf, founded Aequum Tuticum; a site which within years became Roman while benefitting from its fortuitous location at the crossing of two major routes, the Via Traiana road and the Via Herculeia.
The decline of Aequum Tuticum began with the first barbaric invasions.
As a result of this, the three hills started to be inhabited, a high and easily defendable place, and it is here that Ariano was born, a fortified city in a strategic position; today its ancient and formidable defensive walls are still recognizable and are part of the city.
In a secure place away from the invasions of the Goths
and Byzantines
, Ariano is a fortified city of the Lombards
. Around 1000 the Castle
was built to defend the city against the Byzantines which, although ruined, still proudly stands in the Villa Comunale city park.
Successively conquered by the Normans, in 1140 it was the place where were promulgated, by Roger II of Sicily
, the Assizes of Ariano
, the then-new constitution of the Kingdom of Sicily
. This legal corpus will be adopted almost integrally and with a few variations into the Constitutions of Melfi
of the Emperor Frederick II. In the same year it is coined the ducat
, a coin that will last for seven centuries, until 1860.
In 1255, Manfred of Hohenstaufen
, son of Frederick, besieged the city, which resisted strongly thanks to its walls and the combative nature of the inhabitants. During the siege, a group of soldiers from Lucera
pretended to be disserters of Manfred's army, and were welcomed into the city. During the night, they revealed their double face, sacking and destroying the city with the fire and killing all the inhabitants. There's still a road in memory of that tragic event, called La Carnale (The Carnage).
More than ten years later, in 1266, Charles I of Anjou rebuilt the city and gave it two thorns of the crown of Christ
, still conserved in a reliquary into the city's Romanesque cathedral. All these happenings are reproduced every year in the Rievocazione Storica del Dono delle Sante Spine (Historical Reinvocation of the Gift of the Sacred Thorns) and in the reproduction of the Incendio del Campanile (Belltower Burning), a pyrotechnic event that lights the main square of the city and the side of the cathedral.
After the Capetian House of Anjou
lost control of Sicily to Peter III of Aragon
in the War of the Sicilian Vespers
, the city passed to the Provenzale dei Desambramo family from 1294 to 1413; and then in the hands of the Carafa
family and the House of Gonzaga
. Still today are there in the city buildings that were of the Spanish families which governed at that time. On 2 August 1545 the city rebelled against the feudal regime and became a Città Regia (city-state) dependent on the Viceroy
of the Kingdom of Sicily.
, a tin-glazed pottery. The first examples date from the 13th century under the Moorish influence of the Spanish, but Ariano Irpino's majolica became more refined around the 18th century, when the first amphoras and pitchers appear, often simple in the shape, but thinly elaborated. Today's production is bigger than ever, including flask, busts, cups, plates, figures, amphoras. All pieces are splendidly decorated by the craftsmen of Ariano, and often have a fine and elaborate shape.
trace their origins to this city.
Precisely the capostipites of the Soprano family (Corrado Soprano Sr. and Mariangela D'Agostino) emigrated from Ariano to New Jersey
in 1911 (when the city was still called Ariano di Puglia); and also some other characters state that they are from Ariano. Specifically Paulie Gualtieri
states his grandfather was from Ariano Irpino in the episode Commendatori. The likely reason for this connection is that series creator David Chase
traces his mother's family origins to Ariano.
Avellino
Avellino is a town and comune, capital of the province of Avellino in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is situated in a plain surrounded by mountains 42 km north-east of Naples and is an important hub on the road from Salerno to Benevento.-History:Before the Roman conquest, the...
, in the 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...
region of 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...
on the railway between Benevento
Benevento
Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and Sabato...
and Foggia
Foggia
Foggia is a city and comune of Apulia, Italy, capital of the province of Foggia. Foggia is the main city of a plain called Tavoliere, also known as the "granary of Italy".-History:...
, c. 40 km east of the former.
Geography
At a height of 817 m above sea levelSea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
, Ariano Irpino is practically centred between the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
and the Tyrrhenian Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea
The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.-Geography:The sea is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Calabria and Sicily ....
. Formerly called just Ariano, it was built on three hills, and for that reason it is also known as Città del Tricolle (City of the Three Hills). From 1868 to 1930, when it became part of Campania, it was known as Ariano di Puglia. Irpinia
Irpinia
Irpinia is a region of the Apennine Mountains around Avellino, a town in Campania, South Italy about 40 km east of Naples...
is the name given to the area of the Apennine Mountains
Apennine mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...
around Avellino. The name derives from the Oscan word hirpus
Hirpini
The Hirpini , were an ancient Samnite people of central Italy. While general regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation...
, meaning wolf.
Ariano lies in the centre of a fertile district, but has no buildings of importance, as it has often been devastated by earthquakes. A considerable part of the population still dwelled in caves until 1911. It has been supposed to occupy the site of Aequum Tuticum, an ancient Samnite
Samnium
Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of south or south and central Italy in Roman times. The name survives in Italian today, but today's territory comprising it is only a small portion of what it once was. The populations of Samnium were called Samnites by the Romans...
town which became a post-station on the Via Traiana
Via Traiana
300px|thumb|Via TraianaThe Via Traiana was an ancient Roman road. It was built by the emperor Trajan as an extension of the Via Appia from Beneventum, reaching Brundisium by a shorter route...
in Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
times; but this should probably be sought at S. Eleuterio 51 miles (82 km) north. It was a military position of some importance in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. c. 20 km south-south-east is the Sorgente Mefita, identical with the pools of Ampsanctus
Ampsanctus
Ampsanctus, or Amsanctus was a small lake in the territory of the Hirpini, c. 15 km south of Aeclanum, close to the Via Appia . There are now two small pools which exhale carbonic acid gas and hydrogen sulfide...
.
History
The city's origins are very ancient having been settled since the NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
(circa 7000 BC) and continued to be inhabited until around 900 BC. Successively a tribe of the brave Samnites, the Hirpini
Hirpini
The Hirpini , were an ancient Samnite people of central Italy. While general regarded as having been Samnites, sometimes they are treated as a distinct and independent nation...
, the warriors of the wolf, founded Aequum Tuticum; a site which within years became Roman while benefitting from its fortuitous location at the crossing of two major routes, the Via Traiana road and the Via Herculeia.
The decline of Aequum Tuticum began with the first barbaric invasions.
As a result of this, the three hills started to be inhabited, a high and easily defendable place, and it is here that Ariano was born, a fortified city in a strategic position; today its ancient and formidable defensive walls are still recognizable and are part of the city.
In a secure place away from the invasions of the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
and Byzantines
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, Ariano is a fortified city of the Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
. Around 1000 the Castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
was built to defend the city against the Byzantines which, although ruined, still proudly stands in the Villa Comunale city park.
Successively conquered by the Normans, in 1140 it was the place where were promulgated, by Roger II of Sicily
Roger II of Sicily
Roger II was King of Sicily, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, later became Duke of Apulia and Calabria , then King of Sicily...
, the Assizes of Ariano
Assizes of Ariano
The Assizes of Ariano were a series of laws promulgated in the summer of 1140 at Ariano, near Benevento in the Mezzogiorno, by Roger II of Sicily. Having recently pacified the peninsula, constantly in revolt, he had decided to make a move to more centralised government...
, the then-new constitution of the Kingdom of Sicily
Kingdom of Sicily
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of Italy from its founding by Roger II in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of southern Italy...
. This legal corpus will be adopted almost integrally and with a few variations into the Constitutions of Melfi
Constitutions of Melfi
The Constitutions of Melfi, or Liber Augustalis, were a new legal code for the Kingdom of Sicily promulgated on 1 September 1231 by Emperor Frederick II. It was given at Melfi, the town from which Frederick's Norman ancestors had first set out to conquer the Mezzogiorno two centuries earlier...
of the Emperor Frederick II. In the same year it is coined the ducat
Ducat
The ducat is a gold coin that was used as a trade coin throughout Europe before World War I. Its weight is 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, actual gold weight...
, a coin that will last for seven centuries, until 1860.
In 1255, Manfred of Hohenstaufen
Manfred of Sicily
Manfred was the King of Sicily from 1258 to 1266. He was a natural son of the emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen but his mother, Bianca Lancia , is reported by Matthew of Paris to have been married to the emperor while on her deathbed.-Background:Manfred was born in Venosa...
, son of Frederick, besieged the city, which resisted strongly thanks to its walls and the combative nature of the inhabitants. During the siege, a group of soldiers from Lucera
Lucera
Lucera is a town and comune in the Province of Foggia, in the Apulia region of southern Italy.-Ancient era and early Middle Ages :Lucera is an ancient city founded in Daunia, the centre of Dauni territory . Archeological excavations show the presence of a bronze age village inside the city boundaries...
pretended to be disserters of Manfred's army, and were welcomed into the city. During the night, they revealed their double face, sacking and destroying the city with the fire and killing all the inhabitants. There's still a road in memory of that tragic event, called La Carnale (The Carnage).
More than ten years later, in 1266, Charles I of Anjou rebuilt the city and gave it two thorns of the crown of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
, still conserved in a reliquary into the city's Romanesque cathedral. All these happenings are reproduced every year in the Rievocazione Storica del Dono delle Sante Spine (Historical Reinvocation of the Gift of the Sacred Thorns) and in the reproduction of the Incendio del Campanile (Belltower Burning), a pyrotechnic event that lights the main square of the city and the side of the cathedral.
After the Capetian House of Anjou
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
lost control of Sicily to Peter III of Aragon
Peter III of Aragon
Peter the Great was the King of Aragon of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona from 1276 to his death. He conquered Sicily and became its king in 1282. He was one of the greatest of medieval Aragonese monarchs.-Youth and succession:Peter was the eldest son of James I of Aragon and his second wife...
in the War of the Sicilian Vespers
War of the Sicilian Vespers
The War of the ' Vespers started with the insurrection of the Sicilian Vespers against Charles of Anjou in 1282 and finally ended with the peace of Caltabellotta in 1302...
, the city passed to the Provenzale dei Desambramo family from 1294 to 1413; and then in the hands of the Carafa
Carafa
Carafa is the name of a noble Neapolitan family of Italian nobles, clergy, and men of arts.* Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, , uncle of Paul IV...
family and the House of Gonzaga
House of Gonzaga
The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708.-History:In 1433, Gianfrancesco I assumed the title of Marquis of Mantua, and in 1530 Federico II received the title of Duke of Mantua. In 1531, the family acquired the Duchy of Monferrato through marriage...
. Still today are there in the city buildings that were of the Spanish families which governed at that time. On 2 August 1545 the city rebelled against the feudal regime and became a Città Regia (city-state) dependent on the Viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Majolica
Ariano is known for the production of majolicaMaiolica
Maiolica is Italian tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance. It is decorated in bright colours on a white background, frequently depicting historical and legendary scenes.-Name:...
, a tin-glazed pottery. The first examples date from the 13th century under the Moorish influence of the Spanish, but Ariano Irpino's majolica became more refined around the 18th century, when the first amphoras and pitchers appear, often simple in the shape, but thinly elaborated. Today's production is bigger than ever, including flask, busts, cups, plates, figures, amphoras. All pieces are splendidly decorated by the craftsmen of Ariano, and often have a fine and elaborate shape.
In popular culture
The fictitious crime family depicted in the American television series The SopranosThe Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
trace their origins to this city.
Precisely the capostipites of the Soprano family (Corrado Soprano Sr. and Mariangela D'Agostino) emigrated from Ariano to New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
in 1911 (when the city was still called Ariano di Puglia); and also some other characters state that they are from Ariano. Specifically Paulie Gualtieri
Paulie Gualtieri
Peter Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series The Sopranos. He is a caporegime and later underboss in the Soprano crime family.-Plot details:...
states his grandfather was from Ariano Irpino in the episode Commendatori. The likely reason for this connection is that series creator David Chase
David Chase
David Chase is an American writer, director, and producer of television series. Chase has worked in television for more than 30 years; he has produced and written for shows as The Rockford Files, I'll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure. He has created two original series; the first, Almost Grown,...
traces his mother's family origins to Ariano.