© Jeff
Matthews entry Dec
2015
Acerra
Acerra is a town and comune
(municipality - i.e. with its own city hall)
of 60,000 persons in the Campania region about
15 km/9 miles northeast of Naples and about 9
km/5 m) northwest of Mt. Vesuvius. It lies in
the Agro Acerrano plain, the eastern
part of the large Campanian plain. Like many
other towns in this part of Campania, it was
originally an Oscan settlement. Oscans were an
ancient Italic people from central Italy that
spread to the south and were often at war with
early Rome before they were finally stopped by
the Romans in the 4th century B.C. (More at this link.) In the
following centuries, Rome faced grave
difficulties from the Carthaginian invasion (the
Punic Wars) under Hannibal as well as later in
90 B.C. when the Social War threatened to
splinter the integrity of the Roman state. In
both cases, there were entire towns in Italy
that sided with the anti-Roman factions (and
were later severely punished by Rome). Acerra
stayed loyal to Rome in both cases and was duly
rewarded with full Roman citizenship. The town,
however, then fell on hard times in 22 BC when
emperor Augustus Caesar chose the site to
implement his plan of "centurionization"—that
is, dividing the territory into plots of land to
give to returning veterans. Essentially, Acerra
then became a military colony. Temples and other
structures, including an amphitheater from the
later Roman empire (that is, until 475 AD) have
been discovered and are the subject of
archaeological research.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire,
Acerra suffered through the Gothic wars like
everyone else in Italy, then was ruled by the Longobards (also
Lombards) (not so bad, they say!) who built a
castle there, then became part of a separate Duchy of Naples
(who destroyed the castle!). Acerra was sacked
by the Saracens (Arab
raiders) in 881, then became part of the new Norman holdings in the
south (they rebuilt the castle!), and then was a
feudal fief ruled by a long string of the rich
and infamous for centuries of southern Italian
history, through one dynasty after another until
feudalism was finally abolished in 1806.
The
symbol of the city is the structure mentioned
above, the Baronial Castle (pictured) —built,
destroyed, rebuilt and expanded over the
centuries. It is a bit outside of the old Roman
walls and is on top of an ancient Roman theater,
pieces of which are visible from the grounds of
the castle. Historical documents tell of the
various episodes of modernization of the castle
with the passage of time and, indeed, of the
strategic role the structure played in various
struggles between the central authority of the
state and local feudal powers. An inventory from
1481 describes the structure as a "complete
castle, large masonry moat full of water,
fortified towers, various halls and chambers,
storage cellars, stable, mill, chapel of 'S.
Nicola'..." With the abolition of
feudalism, the castle became the property and
residence of the de Cardenas family. The town of Acerra acquired the
castle as a city hall in 1920, and it
remained such until the 1990s when it was opened
to the public as part of the cultural heritage
of the town.
Other
noteworthy structures in Acerra include the Cathedral,
originally built over an ancient temple of
Hercules and remade in the 19th century; the Church
of Corpus Domini (16th century), the Church
of the Annunziata (15th century) and the Church
of San Pietro (16th-17th
centuries). Acerra is also near the archaeological
site of Suessula.
There are two cultural institutions that stand
out: one is the City of Acerra Music School,
not a conservatory nor even necessarily meant
to prepare future professional musicians, but
a civic organization that concentrates on
involving citizens of the town in concert-band
activities through music instruction and
concerts. It was founded in 1862 and has
maintained a solid reputation. The other is
the Museum of Pulcinella, Folklore and Farming
Culture (image, right), for Acerra claims to
be the birthplace of the original Pulcinella, meaning
of the first actor to play the role of the
stereotypical Neapolitan masked figure in a
scripted part (in the 1600s).