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Home > Travel Italy > Italy Destinations > Brindisi
Brindisi
Italy, officially the Italian Republic is a Southern European country comprising of the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it lo Stivale, the boot or, due to its prevalent peninsular geographical nature, la Penisola, the Peninsula. Inhabitants of Italy are referred to as Italians. Their official language is Standard Italian, descendant of Tuscan dialect and a direct descendant of Latin.
Brindisi is an ancient city in the Italian region of Puglia and the capital of the province of Brindisi. Brindisi was possibly an Illyrian settlement predating the Roman expansion. As a Messapic centre, Brindisi was in conflict with Taranto and in friendly relations with Thurii. After the Punic wars it became in the social war it received Roman citizenship, and was made a free port by Sulla.
Under the Romans, Brundisium, with some 100,000 inhabitants, was an active port, the chief point of embarkation for Greece and the East, through Dyrrachium or Corcyra. It was connected with Rome via Appia and via Traiana. Later Brindisi was conquered by Ostrogoths and reconquered by the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century. In 674, it was destroyed by the Lombards led by Romuald I of Benevento.
In the 9th century a Saracen settlement existed in the neighborhood of the city, which had been stormed in 836 by pirates. Again a Byzantine possession, it was captured by the Normans in 1070, and consequently part of the Kingdom of Naples under its diverse dynasties. Like other Pugliese ports, Brindisi for a short while was ruled by Venice, but was soon reconquered by Spain. A plague and an earthquake struck the city, in 1348 and 1456, respectively.
Brindisi fell to Austrian rule in 1707 to 1734, and afterwards to the Bourbons. Between September 1943 and February 1944 the city functioned as the temporary capital of Italy. Brindisi in the 21st century serves as the home base of the San Marco Regiment, a naval brigade initially known as the La Marina Regiment. It was renamed San Marco after its noted defense of Venice at the start of World War I. Brindisi is home to the Papola-Casale Airport, located 6 kilometers outside the city's center. Brindisi is also a major ferry port, with routes to Greece and elsewhere.
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