Salerno (Saliérnə in Salerno dialect) is an Italian town of 131
701 inhabitants, the capital of the province of the same name in
Campania, the second largest municipality in the region by number of
inhabitants.
During the Middle Ages, the city experienced,
under the Longobard domination, one of the most important historical
phases, having been the capital of the Principality of Salerno, a
territory that gradually came to include a large part of the Italian
continental South.
Salerno is home to the Salerno Medical
School, which was the first and most important medical institution
in Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages and as such is
considered by many to be a forerunner of modern universities. Since
1968 the city has been the seat of the University of Salerno,
located since 1988, in the form of a campus, in the nearby
municipalities of Fisciano and Baronissi.
From February to
August 1944 Salerno was the seat of the Italian government, hosting
the Badoglio I, Badoglio II and Bonomi II governments that led to
the Salerno turnaround.
The city rises on the homonymous gulf of the
Tyrrhenian Sea, between the Amalfi coast (to the west) and the Sele
plain (to the southeast), at the point where the Irno valley opens
towards the sea.
From an orographic point of view, the
municipal area is very varied, in fact it goes from sea level up to
the 953 meters of Monte Stella. The inhabited area develops along
the coast and extends inland up to the hills behind.
The city
is crossed by the river Irno, which until the middle of the last
century marked its eastern border and from which, probably, its name
derives. Another watercourse that flows in the municipal area is the
Picentino river, which to the east of Salerno separates the city
itself from the neighboring Pontecagnano Faiano. In the city there
is also a small lake, Lake Brignano ("O fuoss ra cret" in Salerno
vernacular).
Seismic classification: zone 2 (medium risk)
The climate is typically Mediterranean, with mild,
humid winters and moderately hot summers.
The orographic
conformation of the territory means that the city is often affected
by the winds. The currents coming from south south-west collide with
the natural barrier of the Lattari mountains which conveys them into
the Irno valley; vice versa, the currents coming from the north are
channeled into the Irno valley which acts as a funnel making the
winds converge on the city. The first phenomenon generates winds of
a certain intensity, especially in the period between summer and
winter; the second phenomenon is frequent during the winter
coinciding with the irruptions of cold air from the Balkans. In the
winter season, snowfalls in the city are sporadic. Snowy episodes
with accumulation, which occurred recently, are the last two days of
2014 (30 and 31 December), the Epiphany of 2017 (6 and 7 January),
26-27 February 2018 and 5 January 2019, in the latter occasion with
the historical record of snow accumulation in the hilly hamlets of
at least 30 years (7-10 cm). The hilly hamlets, due to their higher
altitude with respect to the urban city core, can sometimes be
affected by frost or frost, much more sporadic in the urban center
itself (but not rare in the different colder areas of the eastern
part of the city, even near the sea, as in the area of
Sant'Eustachio, Torrione, Pastena, the hills of Giovi and the area
of Fuorni / industrial area).
The following table shows the
average temperatures on the climatic data of Salerno Centro and the
rainfall on the climatic data of Salerno Airport.
Origins of
the name
There are various hypotheses that have occurred over the
centuries regarding the etymology of the name Salerno. It was
Erchemperto, a Longobard historian, who provided the first
explanation in his Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum: "Salerno
is called from the sea, which is close to it and which is also
called 'salt', and from the Lirino river: two names in one." . In
the ancient istorical topography of the kingdom of Naples, the abbot
Domenico Romanelli cites other hypotheses according to which the
name derives:
from Salem, great-grandson of Noah;
by the two
rivers Sale (the current Canalone) and Erno (or Irno) which cross
the city;
from the noun salum, that is the sea that surrounds it
to the south.
Strabo described it as "paullo supra mare situm"
(Latin: slightly above sea location).