Taranto

Comune di Taranto
The swing bridge is the symbol of Taranto.
Municipal coat of arms
Location of Taranto in Italy
Country	Italy
Region	Puglia
Province	Taranto (TA)
Mayor	Ippazio Ezio Stefàno
Elevation	15 m (49 ft)
Area	217 km² (83.8 sq mi)
Population (as of 01-01-2008)
- Total	195,130
- Density	899/km² (2,328/sq mi)
Time zone	CET, UTC+1
Coordinates	40°28′N 17°14′E / 40.467°N 17.233°E / 40.467; 17.233Coordinates: 40°28′N 17°14′E / 40.467°N 17.233°E / 40.467; 17.233
Gentilic	Tarantini or Tarentini
Dialing code	(+39)099
Postal code	74121[city]-74122[Talsano]-74123[Gandoli-Lido Azzurro]
Frazioni	Talsano, Lido Azzurro, Lama, San Vito
Patron	San Cataldo
- Day	May 10
Website: www.comune.taranto.it

Satellite view of Taranto (NASA).

Taranto (Latin: Tarentum; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς Tarās; Modern Greek: Τάραντας Tarantas; Taranto's dialect "Tarde") is a coastal city in Puglia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base.

It is the third-largest continental city of southern Italy: according to the 2001 census, it has population of 201,349.

Taranto is an important commercial and military port. It has well-developed steel and iron foundries, oil refineries, chemical works, some shipyards for building warships, and food-processing factories.

Overview

Taranto naval base for the Italian Regia Marina's First Squadron (1906).

Taranto's pre-history dates back to the 8th century BC when it was founded as a Greek colony. The ancient city was situated on a peninsula, protected by a helm; the modern city has been built over the ancient Greek necropolis.

The islets of S. Pietro and S. Paolo (St. Peter and St. Paul) protect the bay, called Mar Grande (Big Sea), where the commercial port is located. Another bay, called Mar Piccolo (Little Sea), is formed by the old city, and there fishing is flourishing; Mar Piccolo is a military port with a strategic importance.

At the end of the 19th century, a channel was excavated to allow the military ships to enter Mar Piccolo harbour, and the ancient Greek city become an island. In addition, the islets and the coast are strongly fortified. Because of the presence of these two bays, Taranto is also called “the city of the two seas”.

The Greek colonists from Sparta called the city Taras (Τάρας), after the mythical hero Taras, while the Romans, who connected the city to Rome with an extension of the Appian way, called it Tarentum.

The natural harbor at Taranto made it a logical home port for the Italian naval fleet before and during the First World War. During World War II, Taranto became famous as a consequence of the November 1940 British air attack on the Regia Marina naval base stationed here, which is today called the Battle of Taranto.

Taranto is also the origin of the common name of the Tarantula spider family, Theraphosidae. In ancient times, residents of the town of Taranto, upon being bitten by the large local Wolf Spider, Lycosa tarentula, would promptly do a long vigorous dance like a Jig. This was done in order to sweat most of the poison out of their pores^{[citation needed]} and thus survive the spider bite. The dance they did became locally known as the Tarantella, which eventually became the name we use today to describe the large, sometimes hairy type of spider, the Tarantula.

History

Taranto was founded in 706 BC by Dorian Greek immigrants as the only Spartan colony, and its origin is peculiar: the founders were Partheniae, sons of unmarried Spartan women and Perioeci (free men, but not citizens of Sparta); these unions were permitted by the Spartans to increase the number of soldiers (only the citizens of Sparta could become soldiers) during the bloody Messenian wars, but later they were nullified, and the sons were forced to leave. Phalanthus, the parthenian leader, went to Delphi to consult the oracle: the puzzling answer designated the harbour of Taranto as the new home of the exiles. The Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city, naming it Taras after the son of the Greek sea god, Poseidon, and of a local nymph, Satyrion. According to other sources, Heracles founded the city. Another tradition indicates Taras as the founder of the city; the symbol of the Greek city (as well as of the modern city) is Taras riding a dolphin. Taranto increased its power, becoming a commercial power and a sovereign city of Magna Graecia, ruling over the Greek colonies in southern Italy. Its independece and power came to an end as the Romans expanded throughout Italy. Taranto won the first of two wars against Rome for the control of Southern Italy: it was helped by Pyrrhus, king of Greek Epirus, who surprised Rome with the use of elephants in battle, a thing never seen before by the Romans. The second war was conversely won by Rome, that afterwards cut off Taranto from the centre of Mediterrean trade, by connecting the Via Appia directly to the port of Brundisium.

Taranto as a center of ancient art

Ancient coin from Taranto, with the eponym Taras hero riding a dolphin.

Collection of ceramics produced in Taranto ca. 580 BC. Taranto Archaeological National Museum

Bronze and gold nutcracker, late 4th-early 3rd century BC. Taranto Archaeological National Museum

Taras was also the center of a thriving decorated Greek pottery industry during the 4th century BC. Most of the South Italian Greek vessels known as Basilican ware were made in different workshops in the city.

Unfortunately, none of the names of the artists have survived, so modern scholars have been obliged to give the recognizable artistic hands and workshops nicknames based on the subject matter of their works, museums which possess the works, or individuals who have distinguished the works from others. Some of the most famous of the Apulian vase painters at Taras are now called: the Iliupersis Painter, the Lycurgus Painter, the Gioia del Colle Painter, the Darius Painter, the Underworld Painter, and the White Sakkos Painter, among others.

The wares produced by these workshops were usually large elaborate vessels intended for mortuary use. The forms produced included volute kraters, loutrophoroi, paterai, oinochoai, lekythoi, fish plates, etc. The decoration of these vessels was red figure (with figures reserved in red clay fabric, while the background was covered in a black gloss), with overpainting (sovradipinto) in white, pink, yellow, and maroon slips.

Often the style of the drawings are very florid, and frilly, as was already the fashion in Fourth-Century Athens. Distinctive South Italian features also begin to appear. Many figures are shown seated on rocks. Floral motifs become very ornate, including spiraling vines and leaves, roses, lilies, poppies, sprays of laurel, acanthus leaves, etc. Often the subject matter consists of naiskos scenes (scenes showing the statue of a deceased person in a naos, a miniature temple or shrine). Most often the naiskos scene occupies one side of the vase, while a mythological scene occupies the other. Images depicting many of the Greek myths are only known from South Italian vases, since Athenian ones seem to have had more limited repertoires of depiction.

Environment

As a consequence of the poisons discharged into the air by the factories on its territory, Taranto is the most polluted city in Italy and western Europe. As a matter of fact, only 7% of Taranto's pollution is inhabitants-related: 93% is factories-related.

Every year Taranto's inhabitants inhale 2.7 carbon monoxide tons and 57.7 carbon dioxide tons. The latest data provided by the INES, the Italian national institute of emissions and their sources (Inventario nazionale delle emissioni e loro sorgenti), confirm that Taranto stands comparison with the Chinese Linfen and the Romanian Copşa Mică, the most polluted cities in the world due to factories' emissions.

In particular, Taranto has dioxin. 92% of the Italian dioxin is produced there and, in other terms, 8.8% of the European one. In ten years, leukaemias, myelomas and lymphomas increased by 30–40%. Furthermore, the dioxin accumulates over the years: so far at least 9 kilos of dioxin have been discharged into Taranto's air by its factories, i.e. three times the quantity discharged in the Seveso disaster (the one in 1976 where the Italian city Seveso was contaminated by dioxin).

Municipality bankrupt

The Municipality of Taranto was declared bankrupt because - as ascertained by Francesco Boccia, chief of the liquidation committee - as of 31 December 2005, it had accrued liabilities in an amount equal to 637 million euros. This is one of the biggest financial crises which has ever hit a municipality.

The fact that the municipality went bankrupt was officially declared on 18 October 2006 by the receiver Tommaso Blonda, appointed further to the resignation of the mayor, Rossana Di Bello, following her one-year-and-four-months imprisonment conviction for abuse of office and documental forgery in relation to investigations made on the contract for the management of the city incinerator given to the company Termomeccanica.

Main sights

This section requires expansion.

Notable people

These historical figures have had a relationship with the city. Not all of them were actually born in Taranto.

• Archytas of Tarentum, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, strategist and commander-in-chief of the army of Taranto;
• Philolaus, mathematician and philosopher.
• Aristoxenus, peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm;
• Leonidas of Tarentum, poet;
• Lysis of Tarentum, philosopher;
• Rhinthon (c. 323–285 BC), dramatist;
• Livius Andronicus, poet;
• Titus Quinctius Flamininus, propraetor of Tarentum;
• Pacuvius, tragic poet, died in Tarentum in 130 BC;
• Cataldus, archibishop of Taranto, saint, and patronus;
• Bohemond of Taranto, key military leader on the First Crusade
• Gil Cardinal Albornoz, archibishop of Taranto in 1644;
• Giovanni Paisiello, composer;
• Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Napoleonic army general and novelist, died in Taranto;
• Etienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald (1765–1840), duke of Taranto and marshal of France;
• Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, rumoured to have been born here and not Rome as was first assumed.

Citations

Horace, Ode to Septimius - Celebrating plate.

Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth
which yields not to Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum;
where heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter,
and in the sunny hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian.

—Horace, To Septimius (Odes, II. 6, 13-20)

Dicas adductum propius frondere Tarentum.

—Horace, To his friend Quinctius, telling that a lovely place in country may look like the leafy Taranto. (Epistula I, 16, 11)

Miscellaneous

• Star of David: "A David's shield has recently been noted on a Jewish tombstone at Tarentum, in southern Italy, which may date as early as the third century of the common era."
• Tarentum was included in the hit PC game Rome: Total War as the governing settlement for Apulia as well as the capital of the Roman Faction of Brutii

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Taranto

• Official website
• Taranto Jewish History
• Culture Centre Filonide
• Hotel Palace
• Tourism in Taranto
• Holy Week Rites in Taranto, Italy (website in English and Spanish)
• MARTA: Museo nazionale ARcheologico TAranto (Taranto Archaeological National Museum)
• Word of the Day: Tarantula and Tarantella, From Taranto, etymology and folklore

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