Rione Terra is a historic quarter in

Pozzuoli Pozzuoli (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) of the Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean Peninsula. History Antiquity Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of ''Dicaearchia ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in the

Phlegraean Fields The Phlegraean Fields (, ; ) is a large volcano, volcanic caldera west of Naples, Italy. The Neapolitan Yellow Tuff eruption (about 12ka BP) produced just 50 cubic kilometers. It is, however, one of relatively few volcanoes large enough to f ...

region west of

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. The ancient fortress originally served as the

acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens ...

for the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

settlement of Dicearkia before being integrated as the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

port city of Puteoli. The densely built-up district is located on a small

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

promontory overlooking the

Gulf of Pozzuoli The Gulf of Pozzuoli (; ), formerly known as the Gulf of Puteoli, is a large bay or small gulf in the northwestern end of the Gulf of Naples in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies west of Naples and is named for its port of Pozzuoli. The Roman ' was loc ...

and today serves as a tourist attraction.

History

Rione Terra was originally a fortress for the settlement of Dicearkia founded by Greek colonists from

Samos Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...

in the 6th century BCE. The fortress became the Roman colony of Puteoli in 194 BCE and was subsequently reinforced by Roman walls. An ancient

Roman temple Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in culture of ancient Rome, Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Architecture of ancient Rome, Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete ...

dating from this time was reconstructed as a temple for

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

in the 1st century CE in the centre of the fortress. The temple was later converted into the Pozzuoli Cathedral (''Duomo'') which stands to this day. With its narrow and ancient streets, Rione Terra was populated until 1970 when it was evacuated due to a sudden

bradyseism Bradyseism is the gradual uplift (positive bradyseism) or descent (negative bradyseism) of part of the Earth's surface caused by the filling or emptying of an underground magma chamber or hydrothermal activity, particularly in volcanic calderas. ...

event that raised the hill on which the district is located by relative to sea level. The district was further damaged by the

1980 Irpinia earthquake The 1980 Irpinia earthquake () took place in Italy on 23 November 1980, with a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). It left at least 2,483 people dead, at least 7,700 injured, and 250,000 homeless. Eart ...

and was the subject of a restoration and excavation effort beginning in the 1980s. In 2014, Rione Terra reopened to the public as an open-air museum.

References

{{Authority control Pozzuoli