Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli ( Puteoli in Roman times, " Small well " ) is a town with 80 812 inhabitants ( 31 December 2012) in the Italian region Campania, located west of Naples, on the Gulf of Naples.

History

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

When the city 194 BC a Roman colony was, you renamed it to Puteoli. With its proximity to Capua and Via Appia of the harbor for trade and passenger traffic continued to gain importance and was protected at the beginning of the 2nd century BC by a jetty from the dangerous southern winds. The grain deliveries to the supply of Rome, who came by ship via Alexandria in Egypt was, landed here.

Puteoli was in the Republican period the main port of Rome and played even after the turn of time, after the port at Ostia was built by Emperor Claudius, such an important role in that, as Tacitus reports, considered from there to build a canal to Rome. 139 AD had put the damaged pier repaired Emperor Antoninus Pius. She was 372 meters long and 15-16 meters wide, resting on 15 pillars, which were connected by arch structures. As we know from pictures on Roman glass bottles and by a medieval, now lost, copy of a wall painting that pier with triumphal arches and columns were decorated. Today, from this ancient building nothing more to see, as the last surviving remnants were overbuilt in 1930 with the modern pier.

A remarkable event took place at Puteoli in the year 39, when Caligula ordered the construction to the opposite, two miles distant, Baiae a pontoon bridge from here. Then he rode clothed with a horse on the breastplate of Alexander the Great over the bridge and thus punished a prophecy of an astrologer lie, who claimed that he had so many chances to become emperor as it was possible with a horse across the Gulf to Baiae to ride.

The hot springs were already used in ancient times as a medicinal baths. Around 1220 Peter wrote of Ebulo with the De Balneis puteolanis a textbook about the healing effects of the individual sources of Pozzuoli.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe, The Solfatara of Pozzuoli (1787 )

Gas emissions ( solfataras ) in the Solfatara of Pozzuoli

Historical Map ( 1888 )

Location and surroundings

The volcano- dominated town is the main center of Campi Flegrei. In the municipality is the Solfatara. Pozzuoli has also given the pozzolan the name. The Flavian Amphitheater well preserved summed 20,000 spectators.

Only a little inland from the present shoreline are in the city center, the ruins of the macellum, a market in the area of the ancient port: about 4 m below the present street level and 2 m below the present sea level are some remains of columns, the from 3.6 m upwards towards having a 2.7 m wide band of holes mariner piddock. These are evidence that the earth's crust has been the establishment of the buildings lowered and raised here several times, so that the columns were temporarily lost in mud and water.

Cause of the movements (amplitude more than 10 m) is the everywhere active volcanism (eg Campi Flegrei, Vesuvius ). The ups and downs is partly very abruptly: In 1538 came a few kilometers west of the volcano Monte Nuovo, which resulted in Pozzuoli in just 2 days to a ground elevation of 6 m. Even in recent times, the terrain in the only two years raised between 1984 and 1986 by 1.8 m. This brought problems for the port with it, and parts of the old town had to be evacuated because of the danger of collapse ( and were still not restored ).

The area of Pozzuoli is where it has not been destroyed by development and urban sprawl, scenically very attractive. At Pozzuoli as part of the volcanic island located southeast Nisida.

Policy

Domenico Bagnato is 2005 Acting Mayor since 23 December.

Economy

The town thrives on tourism and fishing. The port is important for many ferry connections to the island of Ischia and Procida Island for. In Pozzuoli is the Academy of the Italian Air Force.

Twinning

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

Famous people

• Around the year 60 went here the Apostle Paul of Tarsus on his fourth missionary journey as a Roman prisoner in the country to be brought to Rome.
• Died here in 1736, the composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
• The actress Sophia Loren grew up in Pozzuoli ( immediately after birth in 1934 in Rome).