Taranto’s discovery by European travellers

Taranto is a unique city, in many ways. Unique for its legendary origins, its traditions which are still evident, for a unique co-existence in the urban landscape of ancient and modern elements: the one and other, side by side without apparent contrasts. Whenever its specific origins are - the date of Taranto’s birth, is commonly set at around 706 BC – we will not follow the turbulent historical events of the city but rather try to highlight, with the help of reliable writers of the past, what of it’s distant past survived in an age nearest to us.

We could begin by the Roman abbot Giovanni Battista Pacichelli, a hagiographer of important value, who, as well as being an outstanding jurist and theologian, lived in the second half of the seventeenth century, and provides us with valuable information taken from personal observations made during his four trips to Puglia. They are indications that appear to be pieces of a mosaic he to illustrate "The Kingdom of Naples in perspective", a work published posthumously that brought him fame primarily recognising the diligent research conducted. Researches which bring together those who had already dealt with Taranto, more or less from Varro to Pliny, from Horace to Martial, Juvenal by a Polibio from a Macrobio Strabone. Proceeding in the academic presentation of the city, Pacichelli revealed that "any renowned geographer will converse," and he recalls the consolidated public voice in which the apostle Peter and the Evangelist Mark would come there to do "fruitful preaching" and qualify the people by giving the Holy Baptism. And if the roads are, in the eyes of the Abbot, very dirty – which is the only negative note, among many positive comments – the "good buildings" and especially the cathedral, are not neglected, with its three naves supported by sturdy columns of marble, which boast the famous chapel of San Cataldo, glorious protector of the citizen. In the abbots works, he also speaks of a successful trade of the citizens of Taranto, that of the harvest of mussels, cultivated in the waters of the Mar Piccolo. These are joined by tasty fish and oysters and other species of tasty seafood, pushed by the flow of waves towards the port. This fishery takes place as a craft, a technique which dates back to thousands of years.

This place was also mentioned by Henry Swinburne, who, visiting Taranto a century after Pacichelli, essentially confirmed the impressions of the latter. Once he coped with the impervious streets of Puglia, on horse and with one servant, he arrived in the city where his gaze ranged the charming panorama that opened before his eyes, he could not avoid loving the decadent considerations of Taranto, which in the flourishing business past, to assume and justly so, received the title of "queen" of Magna Grecia and the seas. "Everything was motionless at the port - writes the Swinburne - where they used to meet the commercial ships around the world. There was just one fishing boat crossed the waters on which once the powerful Carthaginian fleet waved its sails. But this is not the only cause for regret. "Of all the temples, stadiums, theatres and other monuments which were witness to the glory and opulence - continues the writer - not a single column remains on the heights where Taranto stood. As for the cathedral, which had so favourable aroused the interest of Pacichelli, for the Englishman “it is of little value: and it is sad to think that the patron saint of the chapel was decorated at the expense of almost all the monuments of the ancient city. The granite Columns torn from the were in ruins, clumsily grouped under the vault, inelegant of this church. "Another incident reported by the British writer: "... the modern Taranto can no longer boast that health which in every season once made it the delight of the epicureans and elderly. A neglect to cultivate the land and keeping the channels clear has made the climate unhealthy during the hot months ...". He does however remain satisfied by the seafood, an authentic local specialties, of which he tastes different qualities and in large amounts "without feeling the slightest difficulty in its digestion." The rating is such that one that wants to see in person the places from which so tasty foods come from. Accompanied by an old fisherman from Taranto, he goes to sea to be shown the fishing grounds and shown the various systems for catching fish. The lack of curiosity is directed to the cultivation of "black mussels" or muscle, the most abundant and preferred product in that market.

Yet another century and another famous author, Ferdinand Gregorovius descends to Taranto, in two consecutive years, 1847 and 1875, as a leg of a long journey to find the places where the colonies of Magna Grecia prospered. A journey “without difficulty and danger ", and we do not fail to point out with emphasis the diversity of conditions which existed in the past:" Just a few years ago a trip to Taranto was a so difficult that only a few foreign scientists, archaeologists, were able to see this famous city. " And here is Taranto, or to be more precise that what was Taranto, the political, religious, cultural, artistic and economic capital of about Hellenism in Italy. The writer traces a brief but detailed historical perspective, given the little information received from antiquity, it recalls the most distinguished personalities, the Pythagoreans Archit, friend of Plato and the brilliant mathematician and valiant leader, Lysia, Master of Epaminonda from Aristosseno philosophers, Filolao and the mathematical Nicomaco to the poetsCleante and Rintone to the musicians Nikokles and Eumeno. But the shadow of the decline of the city lies in the inexorable centuries. Subjugated and plundered by the Romans, conquered by the Goths and the Byzantines, assaulted by the Saracens, dominated by the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Spanish, part of the Kingdom of Naples, several times destroyed and re-built from the rubble: Taranto leads indeed for various events and upheavals.

Of them, and it’s passed splendour, few traces remain; expressed his regret that the Gregorovius as did Swinburne regrets this, and senses a not of squalor in the port and whilst entering the city, "some poor inns, some coffee shops of sordid aspect", a clear sign of so much misery. Neither the best impression causes the human element: "the population appears to be apathetic, declined in hopelessness. And it's if they were asleep on this millennium island, located between two seas, forgotten, along with its history, by the world and by itself. "But on opposite sides of the scales the German writer poses with objective impartiality, a decisive argument: and it is the charm of a “beautiful marina, great and of noble aspect, of a landscape so beautiful to awaken the desire to live there, surrounded by the veil of that beautiful Ionian Sea, far from the confusion of the world and its ugly passions. " A desire already expressed by Orazio when, walking along the shores of the Mar Piccolo, wrote the famous “Odes to Septimius Severus,” a desire to be able to escape in that corner of earth, if the petty Parche had denied him the beloved Tibur.

So did Taranto appear to these three famous memorialist of the last centuries. The opinions sometimes agree, sometimes diverge, if not only for the fact that an objective reality was observed at different times but, rather, as a result of a subjective way to capture the same reality from different observers. A passionate testimony, however, of interest and love for a city that confirms, the thread of uninterrupted history, its extraordinary vocation to honourably maintain the crown of "Queen" of the Ionian.