History of Campania Italy - Travel Guide & Information

This description page of Campania, will guide you in planning your trip to Italy and help you to find useful travel information about the history of this Italian Region.

The first recorded peoples to have lived in the region of Campania were the Aurunci and the Opici. The importance of Ancient Greece to the area is well documented, and is still clearly visible today—the first established Greek colony was founded at Cuma, north of the site of present day Naples (Napoli), in the 8th century BC.

The remarkable Etruscans ruled the area in the 6th century BC, and they in turn fell to the Sannites until, in the 4th century BC, the area was annexed by the Holy Roman Empire. This was a fairly stable period, abruptly ended by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, totally destroying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The fall of the Roman Empire saw the area fought over by the Goths and the Byzantines during the 5th and 6th centuries, with it eventually becoming part of the Lombard duchy of Benevento (except for Amalfi and Naples (Napoli), both of which were established as independent republics). The Normans (under Robert Guiscard and his antecedents) conquered and re-unified Campania during the 11th and 12th centuries, seizing southern Italy from the Byzantines. In 1139 Roger II, Guis's nephew, was invested, by Pope Innocent II, with the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the Norman conquests of southern Italy, of which Campania was one.

Charles I (Charles of Anjou) lost Sicily in 1282, but he retained the mainland territories—these came to be known as the Kingdom of Naples (Napoli), and roughly covered a region comprising modern day Campania, Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata, Apulia ( Puglia ), and Calabria, with Naples (Napoli) as the capital. The two kingdoms were later reunited (in 1442) by Alfonso V of Aragon who styled himself the “King of two Sicilies.” Under his successors the two kingdoms were once again separated, but the title was subsequently revived during the Spanish domination (1504–1713) of both kingdoms.

The Treaty of Blois ceded Naples (Napoli) and Sicily to Spain. Next came Austria, who occupied the area in 1707. During the War of Polish Succession, Don Carlos of Bourbon (later becoming Charles III of Spain) reconquered the kingdoms of Naples (Napoli) and Sicily. The Treaty of Vienna in 1738 formalized this conquest, and the two kingdoms again became subservient to the Spanish crown, ruled by a branch of the Spanish line of Bourbon.

Ferdinand IV of Naples (Napoli) officially merged the two kingdoms in 1816 and titled himself “Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies.” A popular uprising in 1820 forced Ferdinand to concede a constitution, but Austrian intervention in 1821 restored his absolute power. Sicily and Naples (Napoli) were to fall to the forces of Garibaldi in 1860. A plebiscite of the people decided that the Naples (Napoli) should be annexed to the Kingdom of Piedmont, which then became the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, and, in 1861, Campania became part of the Kingdom of Italy.

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