Siponto
Siponto, (Latin Sipontum; Greek Sepius (after sepia, " squid "); Sipus in the Geographica Strabo ( Book VI, Chapter 3 )) is the ancient port city of Arpi, south of Manfredonia in Apulia, the heel of the Italian boot.
The city is now in ruins. Currently it is a seaside resort. The emergence is an archaeological park.
History
It is one of the oldest settlements in the Daunians. The establishment of an originally Greek village lost in the myth. Diomedes, a descendant of the Daunus ( mythical king of Apulia) is said to have built it. Sipontum was a thriving Greek colony that fell into the hands of the Samnites. To 335 BC, it was founded by King Alexander I of Epirus, uncle of Alexander the Great, recovered.
189 BC it became a Roman colony. According to the Christian legend Sipontum one of Italy's oldest dioceses and his bishop was ordained by S. Peter. The first bishop known there was Felix, who is named in a council of the year 465. The ancient cathedral was the seat of the archbishops, but they transferred him, probably for fear of the raids of the Saracens, for some time to Monte Gargano.
During the reign of Gelasius I ( 492-496 ) Bishop Lawrence (San Lorenzo Maiorano, Bishop of Siponto, later patron saint ) appeared on Monte Gargano of the archangel Saint Michael, to whose memory the famous monastery of the Archangel was founded. Above the entrance are inscribed the legendary words that the Archangel had spoken to that bishop, " 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 the people will forgive -. . This is the special house in which any shameful act will be repaid ) to destroy as king Odoacer intended Siponto, he was allegedly beaten with the help of St. Michael.
663 Siponto was by the Lombards (or Slavs ( slavs )? ) Captured and destroyed. Approximately 688 Vitalian Pope ( 657-672 ) was required to entrust the Bishop of Benevento the supervision of Sipontum. In the 9th century Sipontum was for a while in the hands of the Saracens. 1042 did the Normans to the seat of one of its 12 counties. They won in 1052 a decisive victory over the Byzantine general Argyrus. Leo IX. (1049-1054) united with Sipontum Benevento. Under Bishop Saint Gerard ( 1066) it became an archbishopric.
After the old church of Santa Maria Maggiore di Siponto had fallen, it was rebuilt in the early 12th century under Pope Paschal II. 1117, when he held a council at Benevento, he attended Siponto and inaugurated the cathedral. 1177 Pope Alexander III embarks here. one when he went to the famous Congress to Venice, to make peace with the emperor Barbarossa. It seems that the port Sipontos at that time, was called as a storehouse of the whole province, Porto di Capitanata. He took away as such, although the city was already expired. 1223 was a violent earthquake.
On 8 January 1252 the Hohenstaufen Conrad IV landed on his royal procession to southern Italy in Siponto. Here is his half-brother Manfred handed him the dominion of Apulia and other provinces. 1254 dies Conrad IV and Manfred is heir and lord of the land. 1255 threw a another earthquake Siponto completely to the ground.
Manfred soon decided to build a new city on a healthier and also against the pirates more protected location. The new city, for which one, he called the ruins of the old used Manfredonia.
Bishops of the city
- List of Archbishops of Manfredonia
Antonio Marcello (1643 ) presented the 1620 destroyed by the Turks Cathedral restored.
Around the year 1525 saw the Bolognese monk Leandro Alberti ( 1479-1553 ), according to his " Descrizione di tutta l' Italia " are so many and great ruins, he concluded, it must have been a handsome and noble city.