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Nocera Superiore ( or Nucèrä Superiórë) is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
It was the core of the ancient city of , later known as , and then (), which also included the nowadays territories of Nocera Inferiore, Pagani and smaller towns.
In other respects, its history up until 1851 is held in common with the adjacent Nocera Inferiore: the two towns share a common origin.
Its seismic hazard rating puts it in zone 2 (medium hazard level), according to Ordinance PCM n. 3274 of 20 March 2003.
The name's origins were uncovered through the study of inscriptions on the city's coins which stated Nuvkrinum Alafaternum. Analysing these two words, linguists have split the terms in this way:
The name Nuvkrinum Alafaternum is derived from nuv + krin-um + alafatern-um: nuv ('new'), krin ('fortress') of the Alfaterni, an Italic people of the Agro Nocerino Sarnese.
It became an Etruscan settlement and possibly part of the dodecapolis (the twelve most important cities) of the Etruscan colonisation in Campania to block the Greek expansion towards the north.
After the defeat of 474 BC at the Battle of Cumae the Etruscans abandoned the region and Nuvkrinum passed to the Samnites. In the 5th century BC the city changed its name by adding Alfaternum from the name of the Samnite tribe of the Alfaterni.
Around the 6th century BC the Osci,The Oscans in Greek and Roman Tradition: Some Notes, Federico Russo, Ancient history bulletin.org 27 (2013) 75–82 www.ancienthistorybulletin.org an Italic people of Campania, probably gave rise to the original settlement of Nuceria Alfaterna, located in Nocera Superiore, between the current Pareti and Pucciano districts. This site was chosen due to its favourable geographic position with water sources and a very fertile hinterland protected from winds.
It became one of the most important cities of ancient Campania and the capital of a confederation ( Lega nucerina) which included Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Sorrento. It minted its own money on which the expression Nuvkrinum Al (a) faternum was engraved using a particular alphabet (Nucerian alphabet) based on the Greek and Etruscan alphabets.
Nuceria's first mention in history is in 315 BC when, during the Second Samnite War, it was an ally of the Romans but was persuaded to abandon the alliance and join the Samnite cause.Diod. 19.65 In 310 BC the Romans ravaged the territory of Nuceria but in the end it obtained favourable treatment and entered into an alliance with Rome as a civitas foederata.Livy 9.38
Its territory was ravaged during the Social War (90 BC) and by the troops of Spartacus.
During the period of the triumvirate, the city became a colonia as Nuceria Constantia, but the city proudly kept its origins and Greek was still written and spoken as a sign of cultural distinction. In AD 59, there was a serious riot and bloodshed in the nearby Pompeii Amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians (which is recorded in a fresco) and which led the Roman senate to send the Praetorian Guard to restore order and to ban further events for a period of ten years.Tacitus: Ann. 14.17
The earthquake in 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 caused serious damage to the town which never regained its previous prosperity.
Nuceria lay on the via Popillia, the great road linking Capua to southern Italy, as well as on the via Stabiana (towards Stabiae) and the Via Nuceria from Pompeii.
At its greatest expansion, Nuceria, famous for the robustness of the town walls, enclosed the current districts of Pareti, San Pietro, Pucciano, Grotti, Portaromana, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Clemente. There are astonishing similarities between the fortifications of Nuceria and Pompeii. Nuceria is rectangular with scarps defending the north, west, and east of the city while the southern side had the strongest fortifications as the most vulnerable section and, like Pompeii, featured a tufa opus quadratum double wall with an agger behind.The City Walls of Pompeii: Perceptions and Expressions of a Monumental Boundary by Ivo van der Graaff, M.A. Dissertation. Graduate School of The University of Texas, p. 158
It was a bishopric as early as the 3rd century AD. The first bishop was Saint Priscus.
During the Gothic War (535–554), the Byzantines and Goths faced each other a few km away along the banks of the Sarno river for months until the Byzantines won the Battle of Mons Lactarius.
During the 6th century the Lombards, under King Alboin, forced Nuceria to surrender: they placed it under the supremacy of the Duchy of Benevento.
After its reconstruction, the birth of the modern Nocera began with many hamlets and villages which gradually expanded and became small towns.
During the Angevin Empire dominion (1266–1435) Nocera was rebuilt and took the name of Nuceria Christianorum. In 1385 Pope Urban VI was besieged in the city castle by Charles III of Naples.
In the XV century the town name was changed to Nuceria Paganorum () in honor to the Pagano family, itself named after the Saracen pagans who previously inhabited the area. Throughout the Spanish domination, the town was subdivided into two departments (Nocera Soprana and Nocera Sottana), each one composed of multiple municipalities.
Every year in August, the male adults of each municipality gathered in public assembly to elect their particular mayor; then – in a different assembly – each department elected the universal mayors: two for Nocera Soprana and one for Nocera Sottana, which together led Nocera dei Pagani as a triumvirate.
| Nocera Soprana | Nocera Corpo |
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| San Matteo |
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| Tre Casali |
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| Nocera Sottana |
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| Pagani |
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| Sant'Egidio |
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| Corbara |
The town survived until 1806. In 1807 five Comune]] were established: Barbazzano merged into the comune of Pagani; Sperandei merged into San Matteo Tre Casali, forming the comune of Nocera San Matteo; while Nocera Corpo, Sant'Egidio and Corbara stayed autonomous. In 1834, the remnants of Nocera Soprana (Nocera Corpo and Nocera San Matteo) merged back into a single comune, but fourteen districts of Nocera Corpo (including Pucciano) later asked for self-administration, which was granted by decree No. 1960 on 11 November 1850, with effect from 1 January 1851; thus were born the contemporary comuni of Nocera Superiore (corresponding to most of Nocera Corpo) and Nocera Inferiore (formerly Nocera San Matteo).
It was one of the largest in Campania (96 m diameter in the Roman phase). The Scaenae frons consisted of a wall with three niches (the central one semicircular and the two lateral ones rectangular). The pulpitum, the low front wall that supported the stage made of wooden boards in front of the scaenae frons, was also decorated with alternate semicircular and rectangular niches.
The orchestra preserves the remains of a rich pavement in polychrome marble. The euripus, a channel for the drainage of water, flowed around the orchestra. The steps of cavea are still preserved, from which the tuff cladding blocks have been largely removed. In the western parodos there are frescoes in the third Pompeian style.
The oinochoe in bucchero with the inscription Bruties Esum in the Nucerino alphabet comes from a burial in the necropolis of the 6th century BC adjacent to the theatre.
Built in the 2nd c. BC against the city walls, it was located along the axis of the north–south road in front of the gate called Porta Romana.
The theatre used the slope of the ground. The remains of the oldest part made with large rectangular blocks dates to the Samnite era. There was an integral school and gymnasium.
The theatre was then restored in the Augustan age which transformed it into Roman form. It was restored after the damage of the earthquake of 62 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. Abandoned since the 4th century, it was used as a stone quarry and then progressively buried during the Middle Ages. The cavities in the walls were used as prisons where prisoners were lowered from above, hence this was commonly called the prisons.
The name of the district where the buried amphitheatre is called Grotti ('caves') which refers to the vaulted rooms (vomitoria) of the structure discovered in the foundations of the subsequent structures.
Through the elliptical form of the road and houses, and after explorations in the cellars of the houses, it was possible to reconstruct the size of the amphitheatre at 125 x 102 m.
A section of them with a two towers is preserved in a sports field on via Pucciano.
A second tower, known today as Cantina Vecchia, is preserved on the eastern side.
The baptismal font (the second largest in Italy) in the centre is octagonal on the outside and circular inside, surrounded by eight columns (five originals).
The building reuses older materials, both in the thick outer cylinder, and for the columns in Pentelic marble recovered from temple buildings of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. These columns are unequal in shape and height and give the baptistery a lively polychromy. The capitals are also completely different, some taken from the temple of Neptune and adorned with dolphins.
It dates back to the 1st century BC. Excavations from 1994 to 1997 brought to light funerary monuments on the sides of a road cut 3 m deep and almost 10 m wide into the ground. Thus travelers could read the messages written on their graves to address them a prayer or a thought. Inside the funerary enclosures, some individual tombs are marked by columellas.
Of the funerary buildings, a tumulus built by the important Numisia gens (Numisia family) recalls the mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. It is flanked by the Mausoleum of the important Cornelia gens similar to the monument of Porta Marina in Ostia Antica with the square lower part surmounted by a tholos. A third building with a square plan, of the important Lutatia gens, is connected to the street below by two scenographic stairs.
In the 3rd century AD in the precincts of the temple a veteran of the 13th Gemina Legion, possibly converted to Christianity, built his family tomb.De Spagnolis M., L'area archeologica di piazza del Corso a Nocera Inferiore, in: Fortunato Teobaldo (a cura di), Nuceria, scritti in onore di Raffele Pucci, Postiglione (SA), 2006
The church of San Matteo suggests the presence of a bridge as sources refer to San Matteo de Archiponticulo (literally 'to the old bridge'). There were usually small places of worship near bridges and the road crossed a stream where votive offerings would be thrown under the bridge in homage to the divinity Janus (two-faced) who has been linked with the construction of the church dedicated to San Matteo, according to popular tradition the "saint with two faces".
In those of the late imperial age, one tomb has inscriptions in Greek regarding a local Jewish community whose very existence would otherwise be unknown.
One Hellenistic tomb found in 1993 contained an inscription on the myth of Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian pirates, known from the Homeric Hymns and celebrated in the famous Dionysus Cup. It is of considerable interest due to its connection with the foundation of Nuceria which some traditions attribute to the Tirsenoi.
The town's standard is described as follows:
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