The fortress of the Sanseverino
Beautiful medieval stronghold that has preserved the aspect of Roman oppidum, Teggiano is one of the most beautiful villages in the Southern Italy.
The hill on which it rises is populated from the first Iron Age (IX century BC).
Finds indicate the presence of a Samnite population who built a megalithic fortification, whose remains, in a surprising historical stratification, appear incorporated at the base of the castle built centuries later.
The high level of culture reached in the VI-V sec. a.c. is witnessed by the presence of ceramics, both of local manufacture and coming from Puglia and the Greek cities of the Ionian coast.
Remains of pre-Roman polygonal walls have been found near the castle.
A column with a figurative capital that recalls the Italic temple of Paestum is walled up near the cathedral.
Other inscriptions attest to the Roman presence at least from the end of the 3rd c. B.C. to the whole IV A.D..
The conservation of Cardo and Decumanus, renewed in Norman and Federician times, is a distinctive feature.
The ancient settlement was probably destroyed in the terrible clashes conducted by the Gothic king Totila in 542 A.D. against the advance of the troops of the Byzantine general Belisarius during the bloody Gothic War (535-553).
The hill returned to be inhabited only a few centuries later with the settlement of a small community of Greek - Byzantine monks, attested for the first time in documents in 917 A.D. as civitas dianensis.
In Norman times it became the fortress of the Sanseverino, for half a millennium a family so rich and powerful that it become the First of the Seven Houses of the Kingdom of Naples.
To give an idea of how extensive their rule was, suffice to say that they could travel from Calabria to Naples without ever leaving their possessions.
Countless are the artistic and architectural testimonies of this period, whose peak is the foundation of the Certosa di Padula, one of the largest in the world, commissioned by Tommaso Sanseverino.
In Teggiano Antonello Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno and Lord of the State of Diano, together with many other feudal lords of the area, ordered the Conspiracy of the Barons.
In the following centuries it was a coveted fief for the formidable fortifications, and remained an autonomous Universitas until the end of feudalism. It took back the ancient name of Teggiano in 1862.
Visiting Teggiano means discovering many important artistic sites, such as the Church - Convent of San Francesco (14th century), the Castle of the Sanseverino Princes (built in Norman times, among the most important in southern Italy), the Church of Sant'Antuono (before the 11th century), the Church - Convent of SS. Pietà (14th century), the Church of San Martino (Renaissance), the Church of S. Pietro (14th century), the Church - Convent of Sant'Agostino (14th century), the Church of San Michele Arcangelo (among the oldest in Teggiano), the Church of SS. Annunziata (Angevin church erected in the 14th century), the Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore (about 1200).
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