Civitella del Tronto () is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the

province of Teramo The Province of Teramo ( it, provincia di Teramo; Abruzzese: ') is a province in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Teramo. The province has an area of , a population of 313,029 (2012), and is subdivided into 47 comunes ( ...

, within the

Abruzzo , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1 ...

region of central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is in the

Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park The Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park is a natural park located mostly in Abruzzo, Italy. It was established in 1991, it has an area of , and it is mainly spread out across the province of Teramo, L'Aquila, Pescara, with small areas ...

History

The origins of Civitella are unknown, though in the area have been found traces of human presence as early as the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

and

Upper Palaeolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

ages. The current town is believed to lie on the former Beregra, a town of the

Piceni The name Picentes or Picentini refers to the population of Picenum, on the northern Adriatic coastal plain of ancient Italy. Their endonym, if any, is not known for certain. There is linguistic evidence that the Picentini comprised two different ...

Italic tribe. It is first mentioned in the 10th-11th centuries, as a walled town; in the 13th century it was part of the

Kingdom of Naples The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...

, having a special importance as it was on the boundaries with the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

. In 1557 it was besieged by French troops, but in vain. Thanks to its fierce resistance, it was given the title of ''Fidelissima'' ("Very Faithful") by King

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

(at the time southern Italy was under Spanish control). Civitella was besieged again by the French during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...

, in 1798 and 1806, this time being captured after four months of defence. In 1816, after the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...

, it was annexed to the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( it, Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and al ...

. The fortress of Civitella was the location of the last stand of that Kingdom after the Garibaldine and Piedmontese invasion of 1860, after the King Francis II had already surrendered in

Gaeta Gaeta (; lat, Cāiēta; Southern Laziale: ''Gaieta'') is a city in the province of Latina, in Lazio, Southern Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is from Rome and from Naples. The town has played a consp ...

, Naples and Sicily being annexed to the newly formed

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

. Civitella surrendered on 20 March 1861.

Main sights

The Fortress of Civitella is the largest in Italy, the second in Europe after the

Hohensalzburg Hohensalzburg Fortress (german: Festung Hohensalzburg, lit=High Salzburg Fortress) is a large medieval fortress in the city of Salzburg, Austria. It sits atop the Festungsberg at an altitude of 506 m. It was erected at the behest of the Prince-Ar ...

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It is located on the top of a rocky cliff, being about long and wide, for a total surface of . Civitelladeltronto flickr02

The town has the following churches: *''

San Francesco San Francesco may refer to: * San Francesco d'Assisi ( 1182–1226), Italian Catholic friar, deacon, philosopher, mystic, and preacher * San Francesco al Campo, a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, Italy Churches in Italy ...

'': built in 1326 in

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

- Romanesque style, while the interior is Baroque *''

San Lorenzo San Lorenzo is the Italian and Spanish name for Lawrence of Rome, Saint Lawrence, the 3rd-century Christian martyr, and may refer to: Places Argentina * San Lorenzo, Santa Fe * San Lorenzo Department, Chaco * Monte San Lorenzo, a mountain on t ...

'': rebuilt in the 18th century in Baroque style, but maintaining the Renaissance façade. *'' Santa Maria degli Angeli'' (15th-16th centuries) *Sanctuary and Convent of '' Santa Maria dei Lumi'': (1466) It includes a Romanesque portico and a polychrome wooden statue of the ''Madonna dei Lumi'', dating to 1489. *''

Abbey of Santa Maria in Montesanto The Abbey of Montesanto or Abbazia di Santa Maria in Montesanto is Romanesque-style Benedictine monastery located in the rural hills outside the town of Civitella del Tronto, in the province of Teramo, Abruzzo, Italy. History This former Benedic ...

'': Founded, according to the legend, by

St. Benedict of Nursia Benedict of Nursia ( la, Benedictus Nursiae; it, Benedetto da Norcia; 2 March AD 480 – 21 March AD 548) was an Christianity in Italy, Italian Christian monk, writer, and theologian who is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Ortho ...

himself in 542, in the 12th century it was one of the most powerful abbeys in the region; it started to decay from the late 15th century. The surrounding mountains have

karst topography Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...

in the landscapes of the

Montagna dei Fiori {{Infobox mountain , name = Montagna dei Fiori , photo = , photo_caption = View of Monte Girella, the top of the Montagna dei Fiori group , elevation_m = 1,814 , elevation_ref = , prominence = , map = Italy , map_caption = Location in ...

Twin towns

, Austria, since 1989 *

Ascoli Piceno Ascoli Piceno (; la, Asculum; dialetto ascolano: Ascule) is a town and ''comune'' in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of Ascoli Piceno, province of the same name. Its population is around 46,000 but the urban area of the city h ...

, Italy

History

Main sights

Twin towns

See also