This building (right) is the original Longobard royal palace built about 774AD.The corner you see here collapsed probably about 80 years after the palace was built and the discendants of Arechi II built an other residence. Interesting is not the fact that this is extremly rare example of the civic Longobard building but that the persons continue to live in the 2000 years old constructions. More. All Salerno is based on Roman foundation, and the houses were repaired and adopted to the modern uses all the time of existance of the towns, because persons continued to live always inside the town walls. You have to visit Naples to see really extreem solutions in this sense.Today, I wanted to show you, how antiquity is discovered where nobody could imagine it.
If you walk in the Old Town of Salerno, you can see Roman columns here and there. I even took some shorts once but could not find them now. I always asked what are they doing here, those columns? And they said me: medieval persons liked beauty too and they put these columns here in the streets to make the town more beautiful.Everybody thinks so, probably. But the citizens of the towns were more practical. They did not do such hard work only to put something "beautiful" in their streets. There were reasons for every component. This concept (mine) was proved recently during the renovating of the wall of the house near the column that was near the ex-royal palace (right on the photo).
They found the arcades of the royal palace! From the documents was known that the actual church and excavation site were the end of the palace that continued in the direction of sea and was covered with the pieces of marble from the Roman villas so that it sparkled in the rays of the sun. Now, it's clear that the palace had these splendid arcades too. It had to be really beautiful. The envoy of Charlemage said in 787, he heard about the beauty of this palace but did not wait to see something similar. They said, this envoy was disguised Charlemage that wanted to see Salerno himself. In fact, Charlemage built than a similar palace for him -it is known that that palace was built later than that of Salerno.
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wow.. thats interesting and small. you always educate me on new things am ignorant of. thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to be able to walk here! You'd feel like the king!
ReplyDeleteLiudmila
ReplyDeletewouldn't these houses lose
their character, especially
when subject to modern use ?
Anyway medieval people always
have a deep appreciation for
intricate art and you just
feel their spirit long sfter
they are gone...
Educate you, Lily??? Probably we all are here to learn something from each other. Because I adore to discover your world through your blog too. :-)))
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Footiam, specially because I know the history of this place and it's better than any novel or hollywood story.
ReplyDeleteBear's Wife, the actual state of the old towns, after centuries of "overbuilding", is not interesting. I think, they do good job when they open these "special" parts of the history of the town. And than they are really very careful when they do it. Architects or ingeneers or I don't know who of them. Because at least somebody will remember the real history of the town this way.
ReplyDelete