In 337 a.d., Roman patricians on their way
to Constantinople were shipwrecked along so stunningly beautiful
a coast that they understandably decided to stay marooned and
let war and empire pass them by. Centuries hence, the 19th
century Italian writer, Renato Fucini, would say: "When
the inhabitants of Amalfi get to heaven on Judgment Day, it
will be just like any other day for them."
For centuries
thereafter-in the turmoil following the dissolution of the Western
Roman Empire-Amalfi remained one of the small coastal enclaves
ruled nominally by the Byzantine Empire. Finally, in 839, Amalfi
was conquered by the Duchy of Benevento, itself a Longobard holdout
against Byzantium. Benevento was badly in need of a port, and
though there is little documentation of that period, the fact
that Benevento bothered to take Amalfi at all may mean that the
place had already developed into a port of some importance.
Upon the death of the Duke, Amalfi freed itself from Benevento
and went into business for itself. In 957, the head of Amalfi
took the title of Duke, putting himself on an equal level with
other rulers of the area. Little by little, the Amalfi fleet
expanded and spread throughout the Mediterranean. Many places
throughout the Mediterranean still have small churches dedicated
to Saint Andrew, patron saint of Amalfi-churches built by Amalfi
seafarers centuries ago. They established a strong presence
in Antioch, and especially Constantinople, where they were
the single greatest group of merchants in the commerce between
East and West, taking an active political and economic role
in the life of the Byzantine Empire. In Constantinople
in the middle of the tenth century, there was an "Amalfi
Quarter," replete with schools and stores. And in Jerusalem
the Amalfitans founded the Order of the Knights, which later
became the famous Order of Malta.
The height of the Maritime
Republic of Amalfi came at about the turn of the millennium,
when Amalfi was a great exporter of wood and iron, and importer
of spices, carpets, silk, and perfumes from the Orient, goods
that found a market in the Papal States to the north and all
the cities in the south of Italy. The cathedral of Amalfi is
from that period. It was built in 1066 and still has the portals
imported from Constantinople. Like the other maritime republics,
Amalfi even coined its own money, the Tarì .
Also, Amalfi was where the first Maritime Code, the so-called tavole
amalfitane,
was formulated, a code that regulated maritime trade in the
Mediterranean from the 1000s to the 1500s and that served as
a model for future maritime law. Here, they say, too, is where
Flavio Gioia invented the compass-or at least improved upon
the device borrowed from the Arabs.
The fortune of Amalfi changed
dramatically for the worse in the 1100s. Three things happened.
First, the powerful Normans, who would eventually take over
all of southern Italy to found the Kingdom of Naples, took
the city in 1131. With that, Amalfitan independence ceased.
Second, the town was sacked by the maritime competition, Pisa,
in 1135 and again in 1137. Third, Amalfi
failed to participate in the first Crusade, leading further
to its decline, and to the rise of competing maritime republics
in the north of Italy. Somewhat later, in 1343, a powerful
earthquake destroyed the port of Amalfi, administering a belated coup
de grace to the once proud maritime power.
The current
accessibility of Amalfi by vehicular traffic is due to the
road-building enthusiasm of Ferdinand II of Bourbon, King of
Naples, in the mid-nineteenth century, who opened a road all
along the Sorrentine peninsula and over to the Amalfi coast.
Special
thanks to Jeff Matthews for historical
content!
Custom Tours CapriTime Tours will gladly design a tour of any length
on Capri and throughout Italy around your specific interests and
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