Manfredonia
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| Comune di Manfredonia | |
|---|---|
 Municipal coat of arms |
|
| Country |  Italy |
| Region | Puglia |
| Province | Foggia (FG) |
| Mayor | Francesco Paolo Campo |
| Elevation | 5 m |
| Area | 351 km² |
| Population | |
| - Total (as of December 31, 2004) | 57,424 |
| - Density | 163.90/km² |
| Time zone | CET, UTC+1 |
| Coordinates | |
| Gentilic | Manfredoniani or Sipontini |
| Dialing code | 0884 |
| Postal code | 71043 |
| Frazioni | Siponto, Riviera Sud, San Salvatore, Pastini, Tomaiuolo, Ruggiano |
| Patron | San Lorenzo Maiorano |
| - Day | February 7 |
| Website: www.comune.manfredonia.fg.it | |
Manfredonia is a town and comune of Puglia, Italy, in the province of Foggia, from which it is 35 kilometres northeast by rail. Manfredonia is situated on the coast, facing east, to the south of Monte Gargano, and giving its name to the gulf to the east of it.
Contents |
[edit] History
The area of current Manfredonia was settled in ancient times by the Dauni, who travelled here from Illyria. Their colony is probably to be identified with Sipontum, the modern Siponto that, according to a legend, was founded by Diomedes. The flourishing Greek colony, having fallen into the hands of the Samnites, was retaken about 335 BC by King Alexander of Epirus, uncle of Alexander the Great.
In 189 BC Sipontum was conquered by the Romans and became a colony of citizens. It was a port at the junction of the road which basiscally followed the Adriatic coast (but gving the Garganus mountain's peninsula just north a miss) and a road through Arpi, Luceria, Aecae and Aequum Tuticum connecting at Beneventum to the Via Appia.
In AD 663 it was taken and destroyed by the Slavs. In the ninth century, Sipontum was for a time in the power of the Saracens.
ln 1042 the Normans made it the seat of one of their twelve counties, while the Monte Gargano remained Byzantine. The Normans won a decisive victory there over the Byzantine general Argyrus in 1052. Siponto was an archbishopric in the Norman countship of Apulia.
Having become unhealthy owing to the stagnation of the water in the lagoons after the 1223 earthquake, Siponto was abandoned. The modern city of Manfredonia was built by King Manfred between 1256–1263, some kilometers north of the ruins of the ancient Sipontum. The Angevine, who had defeated Manfred and stripped him of the Kingdom of Sicily, christened it Sypontum Novellum ("New Sypontum"), but that name never imposed.
In 1528 Manfredonia resisted a French attack led by the Viscount of Lautrec. In 1620 it was destroyed by the Turks, who left only the castle and part of the walls.
[edit] Main sights
The medieval Castle, begun by the Hohenstaufen and completed by the Angevins, and parts of the town walls are well preserved. The Castle received a new line of walls in the 15th century
In the church of San Domenico, the chapel of the Maddalena contains old paintings of the 14th century. Three kilometers to the southwest is the cathedral of S. Maria Maggiore di Siponto, built in 1117 in the Romanesque style, with a dome and crypt. S. Leonardo, nearer Foggia, belonging to the Teutonic order, is of the same date.
Manfredonia is also the seat of the archbishopric of Manfredonia-Vieste-S. Giovanni Rotondo.
[edit] Sources and references
- A. Beltramelli, Il Gargano (Bergamo, 1907)
- Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte
[edit] Sources and external links
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