Taranto

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Taranto (Italian: [ˈtaːranto] ; Tarantino: Tarde), historically also called Tarent in English, is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base. With a population of 185,909 as of 2025, Taranto is the second-largest city in Apulia. Founded by Spartans in the 8th century BC during the period of Greek colonisation, Taranto was among the most important poleis in Magna Graecia, becoming a cultural, economic and military power that gave birth to philosophers, strategists, writers and athletes such as Archytas, Aristoxenus, Livius Andronicus, Heracleides, Iccus, Cleinias, Leonidas, Lysis and Sosibius. By 500 BC, the city was among the largest in the world, with a population estimated up to 300,000 people. The seven-year rule of Archytas marked the apex of its development and recognition of its hegemony over other Greek colonies of southern Italy. During the Norman period, it became the capital of the Principality of Taranto, which covered almost all of the heel of Apulia. Taranto is now the third-largest continental city in southern Italy (south of Rome, roughly the southern...

The Greek colonists from Sparta called the city Taras ( Τάρᾱς, gen. Τάραντος Tárantos ) after the mythical hero Taras, while the Romans, who connected the city to Rome with an extension of the Appian Way, called it Tarentum.

Main articles: History of Taranto and Timeline of Taranto

Taranto was founded in 706 BC by Dorian Greek immigrants hailing from Sparta. Its origin is peculiar: the founders were Partheniae ("sons of virgins"), sons of unmarried Spartan women and Perioeci (free men, but not citizens of Sparta); these out-of-wedlock unions were permitted extraordinarily by the Spartans to increase the prospective number of soldiers (only the citizens of Sparta could become soldiers) during the bloody Messenian Wars, but later they were retroactively nullified, and the sons were then obliged to leave Greece forever. Phalanthus, the Parthenian leader and founder ( Oikistes ), went to Delphi to consult the oracle : the puzzling answer designated the harbour of Taranto as the new home of the exiles. The Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city, naming it Taras after the son of the Greek sea god, Poseidon, and of a local nymph, Satyrion. [ citation needed ] According to other sources, Heracles founded the city. Another tradition indicates Taras as the founder of the city; the symbol of the Greek city (as well as of the modern city) depicts the legend of Taras being saved from a shipwreck by riding a dolphin that was sent to him by Poseidon. Taranto increased its power, becoming a commercial power and a sovereign city of Magna Graecia. Politically and militarily, Archytas appeared to have been the dominant figure in Tarentum in the first half of the 4th century, somewhat comparable to Pericles in Athens a half-century earlier. The Tarentines elected him strategos ("general") seven years in a row, a step that required them to violate their own rule against successive appointments. Archytas was allegedly undefeated as a general in Tarentine campaigns against their southern Italian neighbors.

In 303, Sparta sent Cleonymus, the brother of king Areus I, commanding mercenary armies with official support in order to help Tarentum against Lucanians and the Roman Republic. Tarentum's power and independence came to an end as the Romans expanded throughout Italy. Taranto fought against Rome for the control of Southern Italy: it was helped by Pyrrhus, Molossian king of Greek Epirus, who surprised Rome with the use of war elephants in battle of Heraclea, a thing never seen before by the Romans. After the Pyrrhic victory at the battle of Asculum they lost the battle of Beneventum in 275 BC. Tarentum surrendered to Rome after the death of Pyrrhus in Peloponnese in 272 BC. This subsequently cut off Taranto from the centre of Mediterranean trade, by connecting the Via Appia directly to the port of Brundisium ( Brindisi ).

- See also: Apulian vase painting and Greek coinage of Italy and Sicily

Like many Greek city states, Taras issued its own coins in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The denomination was a Nomos, a die-cast silver coin whose weight, size and purity were controlled by the state. The highly artistic coins presented the symbol of the city, Taras being saved by a dolphin, with the reverse side showing the likeness of a hippocamp, a horse-fish amalgam which is depicted in mythology as the beast that drew Poseidon's chariot.

Taras was also the centre of a thriving decorated Greek pottery industry during the 4th century BC. Most of the South Italian Greek vessels known as Basilican ware were made in different workshops in the city.

Unfortunately, none of the names of the artists have survived, so modern scholars have been obliged to give the recognizable artistic hands and workshops nicknames based on the subject matter of their works, museums which possess the works, or individuals who have distinguished the works from others. Some of the most famous of the Apulian vase painters at Taras are now called: the Iliupersis Painter, the Lycurgus Painter, the Gioia del Colle Painter, the Darius Painter, the Underworld Painter, and the White Sakkos Painter, among others.

The wares produced by these workshops were usually large elaborate vessels intended for mortuary use. The forms produced included volute kraters, loutrophoroi, paterai, oinochoai, lekythoi, fish plates, etc. The decoration of these vessels was red figure (with figures reserved in red clay fabric, while the background was covered in a black gloss), with overpainting ( sovradipinto ) in white, pink, yellow, and maroon slips.

Often the style of the drawings is florid and frilly, as was already the fashion in 4th-century Athens. Distinctive South Italian features also begin to appear. Many figures are shown seated on rocks. Floral motifs become very ornate, including spiraling vines and leaves, roses, lilies, poppies, sprays of laurel, acanthus leaves. Often the subject matter consists of naiskos scenes (scenes showing the statue of a deceased person in a naos, a miniature temple or shrine). Most often the naiskos scene occupies one side of the vase, while a mythological scene occupies the other. Images depicting many of the Greek myths are only known from South Italian vases, since Athenian ones seem to have had more limited repertoires of depiction.

The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces, under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Italian naval forces, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 21 Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean Sea. The attack struck the battle fleet of the Regia Marina at anchor in the harbour of Taranto, using aerial torpedoes despite the shallowness of the water.

The Taranto Prize, defined as the "Biennial of the South", was a biennial cultural event that took place between 1947 and 1951. It was born on the initiative of thirty-year-old veterans who, returning from the Second World War, gathered in the «Cultural Club (Circolo della cultura)» and the newspaper 'Voce del Popolo'. The coordinator, Antonio Rizzo, was a physicist who graduated with Enrico Fermi. He intended to promote a new cultural impulse of a pacifist nature for the city. The event was structured into two sections: literature and painting. Several artists of international calibre, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Giorgio de Chirico, participated. The theme of the competition was the sea.

The Municipality of Taranto was declared bankrupt effective 31 December 2005, having accrued liabilities of €357 million. This was one of the biggest financial crises which has ever hit a municipality.

The bankruptcy declaration was made on 18 October 2006 by the receiver Tommaso Blonda. He was appointed following the resignation of the mayor, Rossana Di Bello, on account of her sixteen-month prison sentence for abuse of office and forgery of documents relating to investigations into the contract for the management of the city incinerator, awarded to Termomeccanica.

See also: Apulian vase painting and Greek coinage of Italy and Sicily

Like many Greek city states, Taras issued its own coins in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The denomination was a Nomos, a die-cast silver coin whose weight, size and purity were controlled by the state. The highly artistic coins presented the symbol of the city, Taras being saved by a dolphin, with the reverse side showing the likeness of a hippocamp, a horse-fish amalgam which is depicted in mythology as the beast that drew Poseidon's chariot.

Taras was also the centre of a thriving decorated Greek pottery industry during the 4th century BC. Most of the South Italian Greek vessels known as Basilican ware were made in different workshops in the city.

Unfortunately, none of the names of the artists have survived, so modern scholars have been obliged to give the recognizable artistic hands and workshops nicknames based on the subject matter of their works, museums which possess the works, or individuals who have distinguished the works from others. Some of the most famous of the Apulian vase painters at Taras are now called: the Iliupersis Painter, the Lycurgus Painter, the Gioia del Colle Painter, the Darius Painter, the Underworld Painter, and the White Sakkos Painter, among others.

The wares produced by these workshops were usually large elaborate vessels intended for mortuary use. The forms produced included volute kraters, loutrophoroi, paterai, oinochoai, lekythoi, fish plates, etc. The decoration of these vessels was red figure (with figures reserved in red clay fabric, while the background was covered in a black gloss), with overpainting ( sovradipinto ) in white, pink, yellow, and maroon slips.