Nocera Superiore ( or ) is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
It was the core of the ancient city of , later known as , and then (), which also included the nowadays territories of Nocera Inferiore, Pagani and smaller towns.
In other respects, its history up until 1851 is held in common with the adjacent Nocera Inferiore: the two towns share a common origin.
Geography The town is located on the northern ridge of the Monti Lattari, in the Agro Nocerino Sarnese.
Its seismic hazard rating puts it in zone 2 (medium hazard level), according to Ordinance PCM n. 3274 of 20 March 2003.
Etymology
According to legend, an Etruscan princess escaped from her hometown for love and came to die in these areas. In her memory, her father erected a city, giving it her name, Nuceria. Another legend tells that a great flood swept away an entire forest leaving a single walnut tree (from the Latin , – Nuceria).
The name's origins were uncovered through the study of inscriptions on the city's coins which stated Nuvkrinum Alafaternum. Analysing these two words, linguists have split the terms in this way:
The name Nuvkrinum Alafaternum is derived from nuv + krin-um + alafatern-um: nuv ('new'), krin ('fortress') of the Alfaterni, an Italic people of the Agro Nocerino Sarnese.
History
Pre-Roman Archaeological evidence from the necropoli shows that at the end of the 7th century BC the native Oscan populations of the valley went to settle towards the sea for mainly strategic reasons, some founding Pompeii, others towards the interior, giving life to Nuvkrinum.Panebianco, V., Il Museo Nocerino nel Trecentesco Convento di S. Antonio in Nocera Superiore, in I Musei Degli Enti Locali Della Campania, Napoli, 1974, pp. 148–151. The city was founded by the union of several scattered villages, colonising a strategic well-defended place guarding a fertile valley and a route between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno. It was centred on the suburb of Pareti.
It became an Etruscan settlement and possibly part of the dodecapolis (the twelve most important cities) of the Etruscan colonisation in Campania to block the Greek expansion towards the north.
After the defeat of 474 BC at the Battle of Cumae the Etruscans abandoned the region and Nuvkrinum passed to the Samnites. In the 5th century BC the city changed its name by adding Alfaternum from the name of the Samnite tribe of the Alfaterni.
Around the 6th century BC the Osci,The Oscans in Greek and Roman Tradition: Some Notes, Federico Russo, Ancient history bulletin.org 27 (2013) 75–82 www.ancienthistorybulletin.org an Italic people of Campania, probably gave rise to the original settlement of Nuceria Alfaterna, located in Nocera Superiore, between the current Pareti and Pucciano districts. This site was chosen due to its favourable geographic position with water sources and a very fertile hinterland protected from winds.
It became one of the most important cities of ancient Campania and the capital of a confederation (Lega nucerina) which included Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Sorrento. It minted its own money on which the expression Nuvkrinum Al (a) faternum was engraved using a particular alphabet (Nucerian alphabet) based on the Greek and Etruscan alphabets.
Nuceria's first mention in history is in 315 BC when, during the Second Samnite War, it was an ally of the Romans but was persuaded to abandon the alliance and join the Samnite cause.Diod. 19.65 In 310 BC the Romans ravaged the territory of Nuceria but in the end it obtained favourable treatment and entered into an alliance with Rome as a civitas foederata.Livy 9.38
Roman During the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC), the city's defences proved formidable enough that Hannibal reduced the city by starvation because of its loyalty to Rome, rather than by direct attack, though subsequently destroyed it in 216 BC.Johannowsky, W. "Considerazioni sull’architettura militare del II Sec. a.C. nei centri della lega nucerina." In Nuceria Alfaterna e il suo territorio: Dalla fondazione ai Longobardi, 123–135. Nocera Inferiore, 1994. p 123. After the war the defences were rebuilt and strengthened with the addition of towers in .
Its territory was ravaged during the Social War (90 BC) and by the troops of Spartacus.
During the period of the triumvirate, the city became a as , but the city proudly kept its origins and Greek was still written and spoken as a sign of cultural distinction.
In AD 59, there was a serious riot and bloodshed in the nearby Pompeii Amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians (which is recorded in a fresco) and which led the Roman senate to send the Praetorian Guard to restore order and to ban further events for a period of ten years.Tacitus: Ann. 14.17
The earthquake in 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 caused serious damage to the town which never regained its previous prosperity.
Nuceria lay on the via Popillia, the great road linking Capua to southern Italy, as well as on the via Stabiana (towards Stabiae) and the Via Nuceria from Pompeii.
At its greatest expansion, Nuceria, famous for the robustness of the town walls, enclosed the current districts of Pareti, San Pietro, Pucciano, Grotti, Portaromana, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Clemente. There are astonishing similarities between the fortifications of Nuceria and Pompeii. Nuceria is rectangular with scarps defending the north, west, and east of the city while the southern side had the strongest fortifications as the most vulnerable section and, like Pompeii, featured a tufa double wall with an agger behind.The City Walls of Pompeii: Perceptions and Expressions of a Monumental Boundary by Ivo van der Graaff, M.A. Dissertation. Graduate School of The University of Texas, p. 158
It was a bishopric as early as the 3rd century AD. The first bishop was Saint Priscus.
During the Gothic War (535–554), the Byzantines and Goths faced each other a few km away along the banks of the Sarno river for months until the Byzantines won the Battle of Mons Lactarius.
During the 6th century the Lombards, under King Alboin, forced Nuceria to surrender: they placed it under the supremacy of the Duchy of Benevento.
Gallery
Post-Roman history
After the mid-9th century the town was part of the principality of Salerno first, and then of the principality of Capua. The citadel of Nuceria, located where the future Nocera Inferiore would rise, was besieged by Roger II of Sicily in the battle in 1132, after four months he razed the town to the ground.
After its reconstruction, the birth of the modern Nocera began with many hamlets and villages which gradually expanded and became small towns.
During the Angevin dominion (1266–1435) Nocera was rebuilt and took the name of . In 1385 Pope Urban VI was besieged in the city castle by Charles III of Naples.
In the XV century the town name was changed to () in honor to the Pagano family, itself named after the Saracen pagans who previously inhabited the area. Throughout the Spanish domination, the town was subdivided into two departments ( and ), each one composed of multiple municipalities.
Every year in August, the male adults of each municipality gathered in public assembly to elect their particular mayor; then – in a different assembly – each department elected the universal mayors: two for and one for , which together led as a triumvirate.
Department Municipality Territory
The town survived until 1806. In 1807 five were established: merged into the of ; merged into , forming the of ; while , and stayed autonomous. In 1834, the remnants of ( and ) merged back into a single , but fourteen districts of (including ) later asked for self-administration, which was granted by decree No. 1960 on 11 November 1850, with effect from 1 January 1851; thus were born the contemporary of (corresponding to most of ) and (formerly ).
Main sights Theatre
The Hellenistic-Roman Theatre was identified between Pareti and Pucciano and brought to light in the 1970-80s.
It was one of the largest in Campania (96 m diameter in the Roman phase). The Scaenae frons consisted of a wall with three niches (the central one semicircular and the two lateral ones rectangular). The pulpitum, the low front wall that supported the stage made of wooden boards in front of the scaenae frons, was also decorated with alternate semicircular and rectangular niches.
The orchestra preserves the remains of a rich pavement in polychrome marble. The euripus, a channel for the drainage of water, flowed around the orchestra. The steps of cavea are still preserved, from which the tuff cladding blocks have been largely removed. In the western parodos there are frescoes in the third Pompeian style.
The oinochoe in bucchero with the inscription Bruties Esum in the Nucerino alphabet comes from a burial in the necropolis of the 6th century BC adjacent to the theatre.
Built in the 2nd c. BC against the city walls, it was located along the axis of the north–south road in front of the gate called Porta Romana.
The theatre used the slope of the ground. The remains of the oldest part made with large rectangular blocks dates to the Samnite era. There was an integral school and gymnasium.
The theatre was then restored in the Augustan age which transformed it into Roman form. It was restored after the damage of the earthquake of 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. Abandoned since the 4th century, it was used as a stone quarry and then progressively buried during the Middle Ages. The cavities in the walls were used as prisons where prisoners were lowered from above, hence this was commonly called the prisons.
Amphitheatre Parts of the amphitheatre were discovered in 1926 incorporated in more recent houses. The visible structures seem to date from around the middle of the 1st century BC with renovations from the end of the 1st century AD.
The name of the district where the buried amphitheatre is called Grotti ('caves') which refers to the vaulted rooms () of the structure discovered in the foundations of the subsequent structures.
Through the elliptical form of the road and houses, and after explorations in the cellars of the houses, it was possible to reconstruct the size of the amphitheatre at 125 x 102 m.
City walls
The double-curtain city walls were built in the 2nd century BC and have a thickness of 1.5 m and a height of 5 m while the distance between the two curtains was about 12 m.
A section of them with a two towers is preserved in a sports field on via Pucciano.
A second tower, known today as Cantina Vecchia, is preserved on the eastern side.
Paleochristian baptistery of Santa Maria Maggiore
It is a 6th-century circular domed structure, of Byzantine style with a double row of 15 columns topped by arches. As the baptistery is usually an annex to the cathedral, the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary probably collapsed. It was built in the centre of the city by removing the previous civil buildings of which some floor mosaics are visible.
The baptismal font (the second largest in Italy) in the centre is octagonal on the outside and circular inside, surrounded by eight columns (five originals).
The building reuses older materials, both in the thick outer cylinder, and for the columns in Pentelic marble recovered from temple buildings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. These columns are unequal in shape and height and give the baptistery a lively polychromy. The capitals are also completely different, some taken from the temple of Neptune and adorned with dolphins.
Necropolis of Pizzone
The discovery of the monumental necropolis of Pizzone, in the locality of Taverne, is due to the systematic control of the territory by the Nocera Excavation Office. It lies 800 m outside the eastern city walls, along the Via Popilia.