Siponto
Siponto (Latin Sipontum ; Greek Sepius (after sepia , "squid"); Sipus near Strabon ) is the ancient port of Arpi , south of Manfredonia , in Apulia , the heel of the Italian boot.
Siponto is now a seaside resort. Ruins testify to the ancient city and an archaeological park is in the making.
history
It is one of the oldest Daunian settlements . The founding of an originally Greek place is lost in myth : Diomedes , who a storm had blown to Apulia, was taken in by Daunus, a mythical king of Apulia. Diomedes supported Daunus in battles against the Messapiers and received as thanks his daughter Euippe and parts of the country. Later Diomedes is said to have founded some cities, including Sipontum.
Sipontum was a thriving Greek colony that fell into the hands of the Samnites . Around 335 BC It was regained by King Alexander I of Epirus , uncle of Alexander the Great . 189 BC It became a Roman colony. According to Christian legend, Sipontum was one of the oldest dioceses in Italy and its bishop was ordained by S. Peter. The first known bishop there was Felix, who was mentioned in a council in 465. The ancient cathedral was the seat of the archbishops, but they moved it to Monte Gargano for a while, probably out of fear of the Saracen raids .
During the pontificate of Pope Gelasius I (492–496), the Archangel Saint Michael appeared to Bishop Laurentius (San Lorenzo Maiorano, Bishop of Siponto, later patron saint) on Monte Gargano , in whose memory the famous monastery of the Archangel was founded. The legendary words that the archangel spoke to that bishop are inscribed above the entrance: "Ubi saxa panduntur, ibi peccata hominum dimittuntur." As well as: "Haec est domus specialis, in qua noxialis quaeque actio diluitur." (Where rocks open, the sins of men are forgiven. - This is the special house in which all shameful acts are erased.) When King Odoacer intended to destroy Siponto, he is said to have been beaten with the help of St. Michael.
In 663 Siponto was captured and destroyed by the Lombards (or Slavs ?). Around 688 Pope Vitalian (657-672) was obliged to entrust the supervision of Sipontum to the Bishop of Benevento. In the 9th century, Sipontum was in the hands of the Saracens for a while . In 1042 the Normans made it the seat of one of their twelve counties. In 1052 they won a decisive victory over the Byzantine general Argyrus . Leo IX (1049-1054) united Sipontum with Benevento. It became an archdiocese under Bishop Saint Gerard (1066) .
After the old church of Santa Maria Maggiore di Siponto fell into disrepair, it was rebuilt at the beginning of the 12th century under Pope Paschal II . In 1117, when he was holding a council in Benevento, he visited Siponto and inaugurated the cathedral . In 1177 Pope Alexander III sailed here . when he went to the famous congress in Venice to make peace with the emperor Barbarossa . It seems that the port of Sipontos was called Porto di Capitanata at that time, as a stacking place for the whole province . It continued as such, although the city was already in ruins. In 1223 it was shaken by a violent earthquake.
On January 8th, 1252, Konrad IV of Hohenstaufen landed in Siponto on his royal journey to southern Italy. Here his half-brother Manfred handed over the rule of Apulia and other provinces to him. Conrad IV died in 1254, and Manfred became heir and master of the country. In 1255 another earthquake threw Siponto completely to the ground.
Manfred immediately decided to build a new city on a healthier and better protected place against pirates. The new city, for the construction of which the rubble of the old one was used, was named Manfredonia .
Bishops of the city
Antonio Marcello (1643) restored the cathedral, destroyed by the Turks in 1620.
Around 1525, the Bolognese monk Leandro Alberti (1479–1553), according to his Descrizione di tutta l'Italia, saw so many and large ruins that he concluded that it must have been a handsome and noble city.
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 36 ' N , 15 ° 54' E
Individual evidence
- ^ Strabo, Geography 6.3