The Rione Terra is an urban agglomeration that constitutes the first inhabited nucleus of Pozzuoli, since the second century BC.

Throughout the Puteola area, the Rione Terra fortress is the only place that has been the protagonist of all the historical evolutions, from the first years of Greek and Roman colonization to the modern era. According to the Greek historian Strabone, the fortress was to be considered a landing dependent on Cumae and it was here that in 529 BC. in all probability the exiles from the island of Samos landed and founded the Dicerachia.

In Roman times Pozzuoli and the fortress experienced their period of greatest splendor. The city, in fact, was for centuries, until the birth of Ostia, the largest commercial port of Rome. The then Puteoli was deduced as a Roman colony in 194 BC. and he had his beating heart right in the fortress. With the birth of the port of Ostia first and the decline of the Roman Empire then, Pozzuoli quickly fell into decline and was reduced to the small fortress of the Terra district.

Closed on the top of the hill on which it stands and with no possibility of expansion outside it, the city therefore began to stratify. The cultures that have followed have built their shops and their homes on what were once the Roman walls.

The most striking example of this phenomenon is undoubtedly the cathedral of the city of Pozzuoli, which was built right on the walls of the temple of Augustus. The cathedral, built at the time of Spanish domination, incorporates the Roman temple, which in turn incorporated a republican temple dating back to 194 BC, which was already renovated by Silla in 78 BC.

Until the 1960s the Rione Terra was still the pulsating center, albeit popular, of the city and the passing of the centuries had now hidden the buildings of Roman times. On 2 March 1970 the fortress was evacuated following one of the frequent bradyseismic swarms in the history of Pozzuoli, leading to its complete abandonment. In the early 90s the restoration and integral redevelopment works of the whole district began, which also brought to light numerous testimonies of the Greek-Roman past of the city.

Excavated in the tuffaceous rock, there is an entire underground archaeological path almost perfectly preserved that traces the Roman city.

Archaeological Path -INFO: https://www.rioneterrapozzuoli.com/en/