Bari/Brindisi

Brindisi is an ancient city in the Italian region of Puglia, the capital of the province of Brindisi.

Ancient times

There are several traditions concerning its founders; one of them claims that it was founded by the legendary hero Diomedes.

Brindisi was probably an Illyrian settlement predating the Roman expansion. The Latin name Brundisium, through the Greek Brentesion, is a corruption of the Messapian Brention meaning "deer's head" (cf. Albanian bri "horn", and dre "deer") and probably referring to the shape of the natural harbor. The Messapian name of the port of Brindisi is Brunda, who means branches of deer. As a Messapic center, Brindisi was in conflict with Taranto and in friendly relations with Thurii. In 267 BCE (245 BCE, according to other sources) it was conquered by the Romans. After the Punic Wars it became a major center of Roman naval power and maritime trade. In the Social War it received Roman citizenship, and was made a free port by Sulla. It suffered, however, from a siege conducted by Caesar in 49 BCE (Bell. Civ. i.) and was again attacked in 42 and 40 BCE.

The poet Pacuvius was born here about 220 BCE, and here the famous poet Virgil died in 19 BCE. Under the Romans, Brundisium - a large city in its day with some 100,000 inhabitants - was an active port, the chief point of embarkation for Greece and the East, via Dyrrachium or Corcyra. It was connected with Rome by the Via Appia and the Via Traiana.

Middle Ages and modern times

Later Brindisi was conquered by Ostrogoths, and reconquered by the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century CE. In 674 it was destroyed by the Lombards led by Romuald I of Benevento, but such a fine natural harbor meant that the city was soon rebuilt. In the 9th century, a Saracen settlement existed in the neighborhood of the city, which had been stormed in 836 by pirates. Again a Byzantine possession, it was captured by the Normans in 1070, and subsequently part of the Kingdom of Naples under its various dynasties. Like other Pugliese ports, Brindisi for a short while was ruled by Venice, but was soon reconquered by Spain.

A plague and an earthquake struck the city, in 1348 and 1456, respectively.

Brindisi fell to Austrian rule in 1707-1734, and afterwards to the Bourbons. Between September 1943 and February 1944 the city functioned as the temporary capital of Italy.

In the 21st century, Brindisi serves as the home base of the San Marco Regiment, a naval brigade originally known as the La Marina Regiment. It was renamed San Marco after its noted defense of Venice at the start of World War I.

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