Venosa

Venosa
Country	Italy
region	Basilicata
province	Potenza (PZ)
Coordinates	40 ° 58 ′ N , 15 ° 49 ′ E Coordinates: 40 ° 58 ′ 0 ″ N , 15 ° 49 ′ 0 ″ E
height	415 m slm
surface	169 km²
Residents	11,478 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	68 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	85029
prefix	0972
ISTAT number	076095
Popular name	venosini
Patron saint	San Rocco
Website	Venosa
	; Panorama of Venosa

Venosa is an Italian commune with 11,478 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the north of the province of Potenza in the Basilicata region . She is a member of the association I borghi più belli d'Italia (The Most Beautiful Places in Italy).

Vines for the red wine Aglianico del Vulture are grown in Venosa .

Geographical location

Venosa is located in the hilly eastern foothills of the extinct volcano Monte Vulture , more precisely on a ridge on the northern slope of the hill Serra la Croce (813 m) at an altitude of about 400 meters. The surrounding communities are Barile , Ginestra , Lavello , Maschito , Montemilone , Palazzo San Gervasio , Rapolla ( PZ ) and Spinazzola in the Apulian metropolitan city of Bari .

history

Antiquity

The first proven traces of human presence in the area of the city, more precisely from Notarchirico , date from at least 600,000 years ago.

The ancient city of Venusia , which the Romans took from the Samnites in 291 BC, is historically proven . Conquered. The name Venusia is said to refer to the Samnite goddess Imene , who corresponded to the Roman Venus . The Romans founded a colony and closed it in 268 BC. To the Via Appia . Venusia had about 20,000 inhabitants at that time. After the Social War in which Venusia fought with nordapulischen cities against Rome, the settlement received v in 89th The city rights and became a Municipium . With the arrival of other citizens, Venusia became one of the leading Roman cities in Italy, as evidenced by the buildings of various temples and an amphitheater .

Even in the times of early Christianity, the city received its prosperity. The first Jewish community in Italy is recorded here in 389.

middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages Venosa shared the fate of many southern Italian cities and came under the rule of Lombards , Byzantines and Saracens . In 1041 the Normans conquered Venosa: Drogo von Altavilla chose Venosa as his residence as Apulian count in 1042/43 and founded the abbey of Santissima Trinità with a church that was to become the burial place of Drogo and his brothers Wilhelm and Humfred . Failed uprisings against the subsequent rulers (1133 against Roger II and 1268 against Charles I of Anjou ), but also earthquakes destroyed the city again and again. The Orsini family had ruled Venosa since the 14th century, and the city passed to the del Balzo dynasty. Pirro del Balzo rebuilt the city in 1470, he also built the castle on the site of the former bishop's church. The decline begins with the conquest of southern Italy by the Aragonese . A plague in 1503 reduced the population from around 18,000 to around a third.

Modern times

In 1516 the royal family Gesualdo was entrusted with Venosa, who helped art and science to flourish briefly in the economically poor city through their court by founding the Accademia dei Piacevoli e dei Soavi , the Scuola di Diritto and the Accademia dei Rinascenti, and artists and scientists afterwards Venosa picks up. After the death of the last prince of the family, the composer Don Carlo Gesualdo , the city was largely irrelevant.

In 1820 the city was involved in the Carbonari movement, this and the disputes in 1861 over the brigand Carmine Crocco are the only notable events of the 19th century in which Venosa becomes a central provincial town of united Italy.

Today Venosa lives mainly from agriculture, namely from viticulture, and from tourism, to which it presents itself as the “city of art”. The Vulture wine region , to which Venosa belongs, produces one of the most famous southern Italian red wines with the DOC wine Aglianico del Vulture .

Attractions

Remains of the Roman city of Venusia from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, including the foundation walls of an amphitheater and a frigidarium
Casa di Orazio, remains of the alleged birth house of Horace
Abbazia della Santissima Trinità , abbey complex with abbey church ( Chiesa vecchia - old church) from the 11th century, burial place of some Norman counts from the house of Hauteville and of Alberada , Robert Guiskard's first wife ; in the east, the Chiesa incompiuta (unfinished church) or Chiesa nuova (new church), an attempt to enlarge the original church with enormous dimensions (12th-14th centuries) that got stuck in the outer walls
Castle of Pirro del Balzo with moat, built 1460–70, in it Museo archeologico nazionale and city library
Cathedral of Sant'Andrea Apostolo (completed in 1503)
San Filippo Neri Church (1679)

sons and daughters of the town

Horace (* Venosa 65 BC, † Rome 8 BC), Roman poet
Manfredi (* allegedly Venosa 1231, † 1266 near Benevento), son of Emperor Friedrich II. , Prince of Taranto, King of Sicily
Bartolomeo Maranta (* Venosa 1500, † Molfetta 1571), Italian doctor and botanist
Luigi Tansillo (* Venosa 1510, † Teano 1568), Italian poet
Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (* Venosa 1566, † Gesualdo 1613), important composer of the Renaissance
Giovanni Battista De Luca (* Venosa 1614, † Rome 1683), Italian legal scholar and cardinal
Giacomo Di Chirico (* Venosa 1844, † Naples 1883), Italian painter
Mario de Bernardi (* Venosa 1893, † Rome 1959), Italian fighter pilot
Rocco Talucci (* 1936 Venosa), Italian priest and archbishop