Pescara - History

History

Pescara's origins precede the Roman conquest. The name of both the ancient city and the river was Aternum (in Greek Άτερνος), it was connected to Rome through the Via Claudia Valeria and the Via Tiburtina. The main building was the temple of Jovis Aternium. The city was an important port for trade with the Eastern provinces of the Empire.

In the Middle Ages it was destroyed by the Lombards (597). Saint Cetteus, the city's patron saint, was a bishop of the 6th century, elected to the see of Amiternum in Sabina (today the city of San Vittorino) in 590, during the pontificate of Gregory the Great. His legend goes that he was executed by the Lombards at Amiternum by being thrown off a bridge with a stone tied around his neck; his body floated to Pescara.

In 1095 Pescara was a rich city with an important series of monuments and churches. In 1140 Roger of Sicily conquered the city, giving rise to a period in which it was destroyed by armies ravaging the Kingdom of Sicily. The name of Piscaria ("abounding with fish") is mentioned for the first time in this period. Several seignors ruled over Pescara afterwards, including Rainaldo Orsini, Louis of Savoy and Francesco del Borgo, the vicar of king Ladislaus of Naples, who had the fortress and the tower built.

The subsequent rulers were the D'Avalos. In 1424 the famous condottiero Muzio Attendolo died here. Another adventurer, Jacopo Caldora, conquered the city in 1435 and 1439. In the following years Pescara was repeatedly attacked by the Venetians, and later, as part of the Spanish Kingdom of Naples, it was turned into a massive fortress.

In 1566 it was besieged by 105 Turk galleys. It resisted fiercely and the Ottomans only managed to ravage the surrounding territory.

At the beginning of the 18th century Pescara had some 3,000 inhabitants, half of them living in the Castellammare. In 1707 it was attacked by Austrian troops under the command of the Duke of Wallis: the city, led by Giovanni Girolamo II Acquaviva, resisted for two months before capitulating.

Pescara was always part of the Kingdom of Naples, apart from the brief age of the Republic of Naples of 1798–99. The city was therefore attacked by the pro-Bourbon Giuseppe Pronio. In 1800 Pescara fell to French troops, becoming an important military stronghold of Joseph Bonaparte's reign. Castellammare, which now had 3,000 inhabitants of its own, became a separate municipality.

In 1814, Pescara's Carboneria revolted against Joachim Murat. There, on 15 May 1815, the king undersigned one of the first constitutions of the Italian Risorgimento. In the following years Pescara became a symbol of the Bourbon's violent restoration as it housed one of the most notorious Bourbon jails. After a devastating flood in 1853, Pescara was liberated by Giuseppe Garibaldi's collaborator Clemente De Caesaris in 1860. Seven years later the fortress was dismantled.

In the following years, Pescara was merged with the adjacent town of Castellammare degli Abruzzi and eventually became the largest city of its region. The new city received a hard blow during World War II and has since been massively rebuilt, becoming a very modern coastal city of Italy.