Southern Italy

Etymology of Mezzogiorno

Regions

Region	Capital	Population	Area	Density
Abruzzo Geography Southern Italy forms the lower part of the Italian "boot," comprising the ankle, the toe, the arch, and the heel, as well as Molise and Abruzzo. It also includes Sicily, which is separated from Calabria by the narrow Strait of Messina. The Gulf of Taranto—an arm of the Ionian Sea—lies between the heel and toe of the "boot" and is named after the city of Taranto, situated at the angle between them. The island of Sardinia, located west of the Italian peninsula and just south of the French island of Corsica, is also often included in Southern Italy. The eastern coast is bordered by the Adriatic Sea, which connects to the wider Mediterranean via the Strait of Otranto, named after the largest city on the tip of the heel. On the Adriatic, just south of the "spur" of the boot, lies the Monte Gargano peninsula. On the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Gulfs of Salerno, Naples, Policastro, and Gaeta are each named after major coastal cities. Along the northern coast of the Gulf of Salerno and the southern edge of the Sorrentine Peninsula runs the Amalfi Coast; off the peninsula's tip is the island of Capri. The region's climate is predominantly Mediterranean, except at higher elevations and in the semi-arid eastern areas of Apulia and Molise, as well as along the Ionian coast of Calabria and in southern Sicily. Naples is the largest city in Southern Italy, retaining its ancient Greek name for millennia. Other major cities include Bari, Taranto, Reggio Calabria, Foggia, and Salerno. Southern Italy is geologically active and highly seismic, with the exception of the Salento area in Apulia. The 1980 Irpinia earthquake, for example, resulted in 2,914 deaths, over 10,000 injuries, and left 300,000 people homeless. History Prehistory and antiquity In the 8th and the 7th centuries BCE, for various reasons, including demographic crisis, the search for new commercial outlets and ports, and expulsion from their homeland, Greeks began to settle in southern Italy. Also during this period, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea, Eastern Libya and Massalia. File:Agrigento-Tempio della Concordia01.JPG|thumb|left|The Greek Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Agrigento, Sicily They included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The first Greek settlers found Italy inhabited by three major populations: Ausones, Oenotrians and Iapyges. The relationships between the Greek settlers and the native peoples were initially hostile especially with the Iapygian tribes. The Hellenic influence eventually shaped their culture and way of life. The Romans used to call the area of Sicily and coastal southern Italy Magna Graecia since it was so densely populated by coastal Greek colonies; the ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria with Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions. With this colonisation, Greek culture was exported to Italy in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites and its traditions of the independent polis. An original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic and Roman civilisations. The most important cultural transplant was the Chalcidean/Cumaean variety of the Greek alphabet, which was adopted by the Etruscans; the Old Italic alphabet subsequently evolved into the Latin alphabet, which became the most widely used alphabet in the world. Many of the new Hellenic cities became very rich and powerful like Neapolis, Syrakousai, Akragas, and Sybaris. Other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum, Metapontum, Heraclea, Epizephyrian Locri, Rhegium, Croton, Thurii, Elea, Nola, Syessa, Bari, and others. Although many of the Greek inhabitants of Magna Graecia were entirely Latinized during the Middle Ages, pockets of Greek culture and language remained and have survived to the present day. One example is the Griko people in Calabria and Salento, some of whom still maintain their Greek language and customs. The Griko language is the last living trace of the Greek elements that once formed Magna Graecia. After Pyrrhus of Epirus failed in his attempt to stop the spread of Roman hegemony in 282 BCE, the south fell under Roman domination and remained in such a position until the barbarian invasions. It was restored to Eastern Roman control in the 530s after the fall of Rome in the West in 476, and some form of imperial authority survived until the 1070s. Total East Roman rule was ended by the Lombards by Zotto's conquest in the final quarter of the 6th century. Middle Ages After the Gothic War until the arrival of the Normans, much of southern Italy's destiny was linked to the fortunes of the Eastern Empire even though Byzantine domination was challenged in the 9th century by the Lombards, who annexed the area of Cosenza to their Duchy of Benevento. Consequently, the Lombard and the Byzantine areas became influenced by Eastern monasticism, and much of southern Italy experienced a slow process of orientalisation in religious life, which accompanied a spread of Eastern churches and monasteries that preserved and transmitted the Greek and Hellenistic tradition. The Cattolica monastery in Stilo is the most representative of these Byzantine monuments. From then to the 11th-century Norman conquest the south of the peninsula was constantly plunged into wars between the Byzantines, Lombardy, and the Aghlabid dynasty. The latter established two emirates in southern Italy: the Emirate of Sicily and, for 25 years, the Emirate of Bari. Amalfi, an independent republic from the 7th century until 1075, and to a lesser extent Gaeta, Molfetta and Trani, rivalled other Italian maritime republics in their domestic prosperity and maritime importance. From 999 to 1139, the Normans occupied all the Lombard and Byzantine possessions in southern Italy, ended a millennium of imperial Roman rule in Italy and eventually expelled the Muslims from Sicily. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II was characterised by its competent governance, multi-ethnic nature and religious tolerance. Normans, Jews, Muslim Arabs, Byzantine Greeks, Lombards and "native" Sicilians lived in relative harmony. However, the Norman domination lasted only several decades before it formally ended in 1198 with the reign of Constance of Sicily, and was replaced by that of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty, thanks to Constance's marriage to Henry VI, member of this family. File:Castel del Monte - Andria.jpg|thumb|right|Castel del Monte, built by Frederick II between 1240 and 1250 in Andria, Apulia In Sicily, King Frederick II endorsed a deep reform of the laws culminating with the promulgation of the Constitutions of Melfi, a collection of laws for his realm that was remarkable for its time and a source of inspiration for a long time afterward. It made the Kingdom of Sicily a centralised state and established the primacy of written law. With relatively small modifications, the Liber Augustalis remained the basis of Sicilian law until 1819. His royal court in Palermo from around 1220 to his death saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian, which had a significant influence on what was to become the modern Italian language. He also built the Castel del Monte and in 1224 founded the University of Naples, now called, after him, Università Federico II. In 1266, conflict between the House of Hohenstaufen and the papacy led to Sicily's conquest by Charles I, Duke of Anjou. Opposition to French officialdom and taxation combined with incitement of rebellion by agents from the Byzantine Empire and the Crown of Aragon led to the Sicilian Vespers insurrection and successful invasion by king Peter III of Aragon in 1282. The resulting War of the Sicilian Vespers lasted until 1302 the Peace of Caltabellotta divided the old Kingdom of Sicily into two. The island of Sicily, called the "Kingdom of Sicily beyond the Lighthouse" or the Kingdom of Trinacria, went to Frederick III of the House of Barcelona, who had been ruling it. The peninsular territories, called Kingdom of Sicily contemporaneously but Kingdom of Naples by modern scholarship, went to Charles II of the House of Anjou, who had likewise been ruling it. Thus, the peace was formal recognition of an uneasy status quo. Although the king of Spain had seized both two crowns in the 16th century, the administrations of the two halves of the Kingdom of Sicily remained separated until 1816, when they were reunited in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.