Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli
Country	Italy
region	Campania
Metropolitan city	Naples  (NA)
Local name	Pezzulo
Coordinates	40 ° 49 '  N , 14 ° 7'  E Coordinates: 40 ° 49 '23 "  N , 14 ° 7' 20"  E
height	28  m slm
surface	43 km²
Residents	80,074 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	1,862 inhabitants / km²
Factions	Arco Felice, Campana Annunziata, Licola Centro, Licola Lido, Lucrino, Montenuovo, Monterusciello, Pisciarelli, Toiano
prefix	081
ISTAT number	063060
Popular name	Puteolani
Patron saint	San Procolo
Website	comune.pozzuoli.na.it
Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli (in Roman times Puteoli , "small fountain") is a city with 80,074 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the Italian region of Campania , on the Gulf of Pozzuoli , west of Naples on the Gulf of Naples .

history

Pozzuoli was founded in 531 BC. . BC by a group of Greek colonists from Samos who from the tyranny of Polycrates had fled when Dikaiarcheia founded ( "just government"). Dikaiarcheia, which had an excellent natural harbor, served the Greek colony of Kyme as a trading port and belonged to Magna Graecia .

When the city in 194 BC When it became a Roman colony , it was renamed Puteoli . Due to its proximity to Capua and the Via Appia , the port continued to gain importance for trade and passenger traffic and was opened at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. Protected from the dangerous south winds by a mole . The grain deliveries to supply Rome , which came by ship from Egypt via Alexandria , were landed here.

Puteoli was the most important port in Rome during the republican era and played such an important role even after the turn of the century, after the port in Ostia had been expanded by Emperor Claudius , that, as Tacitus reports, consideration was given to building a canal from there to Rome . In 139 AD, Emperor Antoninus Pius had the damaged pier repaired. It was 372 meters long and 15 to 16 meters wide and rested on 15 pillars that were connected to each other by arches.

Fresco from Stabiae . The port of Puteoli is probably shown.

As we know from images on Roman glass bottles and from a medieval, now lost, copy of a wall painting, the pier was adorned with triumphal arches and columns. Today nothing can be seen of this ancient building, as the last remaining remains were built over with a modern pier in 1930.

A remarkable incident took place in Puteoli in 39, when Caligula had a ship bridge built to the opposite, two miles away, Baiae . He then rode across the bridge on a horse, clad in the breastplate of Alexander the Great , contradicting a prophecy made by an astrologer who claimed that he had as many chances of becoming emperor as he could on a horse across the Gulf to ride to Baiae.

The hot springs were used as medicinal baths in ancient times . Around 1220, Petrus von Ebulo wrote the De balneis puteolanis, a textbook on the healing effects of the various sources in Pozzuoli.

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  Image taken from the ISS

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  The old town of Pozzuoli

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  Johann Wolfgang Goethe , The Solfatara of Pozzuoli (1787)

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  Gas leaks ( solfatars ) in the solfatara of Pozzuoli

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  Historical map (around 1888)

Place and surroundings

The volcanic place is the most important center of the Phlegraean Fields . The solfatara is located in the municipality . Pozzuoli also gave the name to pozzolana .

Substructures of the Flavian amphitheater

Just a little inland from today's coastline in the city center are the ruins of the Macellum , a market in the area of ​​the ancient port: about 4 m below today's street level and 2 m below today's sea level are some remains of columns, which rise from 3.6 m in height have a 2.7 m wide band of holes in marine drilling clams. These are proof that the earth's crust has lowered and raised several times since the construction of the buildings, so that the columns were temporarily sunk in mud and water. The cause of the movements (total amplitude over 10 m) is the volcanism that is everywhere here (e.g. Phlegraean Fields , Vesuvius ). The up and down is z. Sometimes extremely abrupt: In 1538 the volcano Monte Nuovo was formed a few kilometers west , which in just two days led to a ground elevation of six meters near Pozzuoli. Recently, too, the terrain rose 1.8 m in two years between 1984 and 1986. This created problems for the port. Nowadays the old town has been partially renovated.

The well-preserved Flavian amphitheater held 20,000 spectators.

The surroundings of Pozzuoli, where it was not destroyed by development and urban sprawl, are extremely scenic. For example, the volcanic island of Nisida to the southeast belongs to Pozzuoli .

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  The ruins of the Macellum, October 2017

economy

The place lives from tourism and fishing. The port is important for the numerous ferry connections to the island of Ischia and the island of Procida . The Academy of the Italian Air Force is located in Pozzuoli .

Town twinning

• Agios Dimitrios , Greece, since 1986
• Szczecin , Poland, since 1993
• Tarragona , Spain, since 2003

Personalities

• Around the year 60, the apostle Paulus of Tarsus went ashore here as a Roman prisoner on his fourth missionary trip to be brought to Rome .
• The composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi died here in 1736 .
• The actress Sophia Loren grew up in Pozzuoli (immediately after her birth in Rome in 1934).
• Saint Januarius was beheaded here. The stone on which he was beheaded can be seen in the Januarius Church. The stone is very famous because, according to Catholic tradition, it gets red spots twice a year. It happens when the saint's blood becomes liquid in the Cathedral of Naples.
• In 78 BC, the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla died in his villa after, surprisingly, shortly before resigning his consulate and the dictatorship.

literature

• Wilhelm Deecke : Guide through Campania . Bornträger, Berlin 1901.
• Christian Hülsen : Dikaiarcheia . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume V, 1, Stuttgart 1903, Col. 546.
• Amedeo Maiuri : The Antiquities of the Phlegraean Fields. From the tomb of Virgil to the cave of Cumae. Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome 1938, 1955, 1958, 1960, 1968.
• Hans Pichler: Italian volcanic areas . Volume 2: Phlegraean Fields, Ischia, Ponza Islands, Roccamonfina . Borntraeger, Berlin 1970, ISBN 3-443-15006-3 (Collection of geological guides. Volume 52).
• Dirksteueragel : Cult and everyday life in Roman port cities. Social processes from an archaeological perspective . Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08364-2 .
• Fausto Zevi (Ed.): Puteoli . Banco di Napoli, Napoli 1993 (volume of text and cards).

Web links

Commons : Pozzuoli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikivoyage: Pozzuoli  - Travel Guide

• Website of the city of Pozzuoli (Italian)
• Vesuvius Observatory website (Italian)
• Illustration by Daniel Meisner from 1625: Puteoli. You have a lot to create, but little is ordered to you ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ↑ Axel Bojanowski : Europe's super volcano rumort In: Der Spiegel from December 27, 2016.
3. ^ Christian Meier: Caesar . 2nd Edition. Pantheon, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-570-55384-8 , p. 126 .