Telese Terme, called simply Telese until 1991,
/ref> is a city, ''

comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

'' (municipality) and former episcopal seat in the Province of Benevento, in the

Campania Campania is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy located in Southern Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islan ...

, Napoli region of southern

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 ...

. It is located in the valley of the Calore, well known for its sulfuric

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

Etymology

Telesia is an old word for the gem

Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, cobalt, lead, chromium, vanadium, magnesium, boron, and silicon. The name ''sapphire ...

History

Telese was an ancient Samnite (Italic) city, known as T(h)elesia. Hannibal captured the city in 217 BCE; later, the victorious Roman general

Scipio Africanus Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–) was a Roman general and statesman who was one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Ancient Carthage, Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the greatest milit ...

founded a Roman colony there. In 460, a Diocese of Telese / Thelesina (Latin adjective) was established. Having fallen into decay after the Gothic War, it was conquered by the Longobards, becoming part of the Lombard Duchy of Benevento as the seat of a gastaldry (district). Saracens destroyed the city in 847 and 860, and again in the 11th century, during the war between King Roger II of Sicily and the Norman counts of the southern Italian mainland. A new Telesia was built; however, it was again pulverized in 1349, this time by an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

. Its former cathedral ''cattedrale Santa Croce'', dedicated to the Holy Cross, now in ruins, was decommissioned after the bishops transferred their see to nearby Cerreto Sannita, yet the see retained the alternative title Diocese of Telese as well, even after a further merger into the Diocese of Cerreto Sannita–Telese–Sant’Agata de’ Goti. In 1883, after the

Unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century Political movement, political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, annexation of List of historic states of ...

, thermal baths were built, hence the current full name Telese ''Terme'' since 1991. Telese became an independent commune in 1934.

Main sights

It possesses remains of walls in , of a total length of over a mile; two inscriptions of the Republican period record the erection of towers. The remains of baths () and of an amphitheatre still exist; the city was supplied with water by an aqueduct. There are sulphur springs in the vicinity, which may have supplied the baths.

References

{{authority control

Etymology

History

Main sights

See also

References