Otranto

File:Otranto by Piri Reis.jpg]]

File:"Otranto eine kleine Hafenstadt mit wechselvoller Geschichte". 20.jpg

Otranto occupies the site of the ancient Greek city of Magna Graecia Hydrus (in Greek: Ὑδροῦς) or Hydruntum (in Latin), also known as Hydrunton, Hydronton, or Hydruntu. Otranto was a town of Messapian (Illyrian) origin, which, in the wars of Pyrrhus and of Hannibal sided against Rome.

In Roman times it was a city. As it is the nearest port to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, it was perhaps more important than Brundisium (present Brindisi), under the Roman emperors as a point of embarkation for the East, as the distance to Apollonia, (in present Albania) was less than from Brundisium.{{sfn|Ashby|1911}}

In the 8th century, it was for some time in the possession of duke Arechis II of Benevento.

On 17 August 928, the city was sacked by a Fatimid fleet under Sabir al-Fata. Its inhabitants were carried to North Africa as slaves.{{Das Reich des Mahdi|pages=214–215}} It remained in the hands of the Byzantine emperors until it was among the last cities of Apulia to surrender to the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1068. It then became part of the Principality of Taranto. In the Middle Ages, the Jews had a school there.

{{Main article|Ottoman conquest of Otranto}}

File:Otranto cathedral martyrs.jpg

In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II sent an Ottoman fleet to invade Rome under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha. The force reached the shores of Apulia on 28 July 1480, and the city was captured in two weeks on 11 August 1480. All of the male inhabitants were slaughtered by the victorious Ottomans. Of the 22,000 inhabitants, only 10,000 were left alive. Some 800 citizens, known as the "Martyrs of Otranto", were beheaded after they had refused to convert to Islam. They were canonised by Pope Francis on 12 May 2013.{{cite news|title=Pope canonises 800 Italian Ottoman victims of Otranto|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22499327|work=BBC|date=12 May 2013|access-date=May 12, 2013}} Archbishop Stefano Pendinelli was also martyred.

Between August and September 1480, the Italian and European kingdoms failed to help King Ferdinand of Naples except for his cousin Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain, the Kingdom of Sicily and later the Republic of Genoa.G. Conte, [https://www.academia.edu/14526373/Una_flotta_siciliana_ad_Otranto_1480_ Una flotta siciliana ad Otranto (1480)], in "Archivio Storico Pugliese", a. LXVII, 2014 In 1481, the Pope, in panic, called for a crusade to be led by King Ferdinand of Naples and was joined by troops of Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. The Ottomans controlled the city for 13 months. Mehmed II died on his way to capture the rest of Italy.{{Cite web |url=http://www.yazaroku.com/fsanat-kultur/ilber-ortayli/07-08-2011/guney-italya-ve-osmanlilar/369717/.aspx |title=Güney İtalya ve Osmanlılar |trans-title=Southern Italy and the Ottomans |access-date=11 August 2011 |archive-date=23 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323065343/http://www.yazaroku.com/fsanat-kultur/ilber-ortayli/07-08-2011/guney-italya-ve-osmanlilar/369717/.aspx |url-status=dead }} His successor, Sultan Bayezid II, ordered Gedik Ahmed Pasha to be hanged. On 11 September 1481, the Ottomans abandoned the city.

In 1537, the famous Ottoman corsair and admiral Barbarossa recaptured Otranto and the Fortress of Castro, but the Ottomans were again repulsed from the city and from the rest of Apulia.

In 1804, the city was obliged to harbour a French garrison that was established there to watch the movements of the English fleet.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} Under the French name of Otrante it was created a duché grand-fief de l'Empire in the Napoleonic kingdom of Naples for Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's minister of Police (1809).{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} The family used the title of duc d'Otrante after Joseph Fouché's death.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

During WWI the allied Italian-French-British Fleet organized the Otranto Barrage to control the Austro-Hungarian Fleet in the Adriatic Sea. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet led by captain Miklós Horthy attacked the Barrage (13 -15 May 1917) breaking it and sinking some British drifters (Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)).Carlo Stasi, Otranto e l'Inghilterra (episodi bellici in Puglia e nel Salento), in Note di Storia e Cultura Salentina, anno XV, pp. 127–159, (Argo, Lecce, 2003), Paul G. Halpern, The Battle of the Otranto Straits (controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in WWI) (Bloomington, I.U.P. 2004).

During WWII the British fleet raided the Otranto Channel (11-12 November 1940) as a diversionary manoeuvre (Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1940) from the contemporary main attack on Taranto (Battle of Taranto).Carlo Stasi, Otranto e l'Inghilterra (episodi bellici in Puglia e nel Salento), in Note di Storia e Cultura Salentina, anno XV, pp. 127–159, (Argo, Lecce, 2003), Carlo Stasi, Otranto nel Mondo. Dal "Castello" di Walpole al "Barone" di Voltaire (Editrice Salentina, Galatina 2018) {{ISBN|978-88-31964-06-7}}, Thomas P. Lowry, The Attack on Taranto (Stackpoole Books paperbacks, 2000)

Otranto experiences a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) with long, hot summers and short, cool winters.

{{Weather box

|location = Otranto

|metric first = Yes

|single line = Yes

|Jan high C = 13.0

|Feb high C = 13.5

|Mar high C = 15.7

|Apr high C = 18.9

|May high C = 24.4

|Jun high C = 27.0

|Jul high C = 28.7

|Aug high C = 28.5

|Sep high C = 25.8

|Oct high C = 22.3

|Nov high C = 17.3

|Dec high C = 14.0

|Jan low C = 7.2

|Feb low C = 8.2

|Mar low C = 9.6

|Apr low C = 10.0

|May low C = 12.1

|Jun low C = 15.9

|Jul low C = 21.2

|Aug low C = 21.1

|Sep low C = 16.0

|Oct low C = 12.7

|Nov low C = 10.3

|Dec low C = 8.3

|Jan precipitation mm = 52

|Feb precipitation mm = 60

|Mar precipitation mm = 81

|Apr precipitation mm = 83.3

|May precipitation mm = 83.6

|Jun precipitation mm = 110.7

|Jul precipitation mm = 85.8

|Aug precipitation mm = 67.5

|Sep precipitation mm = 114.6

|Oct precipitation mm = 100.2

|Nov precipitation mm = 80.7

|Dec precipitation mm = 53.3

|year precipitation mm = 972.2

|Jan precipitation days = 6.7

|Feb precipitation days = 7.1

|Mar precipitation days = 8.2

|Apr precipitation days = 8.1

|May precipitation days = 6.9

|Jun precipitation days = 7.3

|Jul precipitation days = 5.8

|Aug precipitation days = 5.1

|Sep precipitation days = 7.7

|Oct precipitation days = 7.5

|Nov precipitation days = 7.2

|Dec precipitation days = 6.6

|source 1 = Italian Ministry of Defence[http://www.meteoam.it/modules/AtlanteClim2/pdf/(332)Lecce%20Galatina.pdf Lecce-Galatina weather station]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Italian Ministry of Defence Retrieved 2009-06-02

|date=August 2010

}}

File:"Ein Gesamtkunstwerk aus 10 Millionen Mosaiksteinen bedeckt die Bodenflächen der Kathedrale" 01.jpg

File:Otranto - Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata - 06.jpg, detail of the mosaic covering most of the cathedral's floor.]]

File:"Otranto eine kleine Hafenstadt mit wechselvoller Geschichte". 19.jpg

File:Otranto - San Pietro - 01.jpg

Otranto main sights include:

• The Castello Aragonese (Castle), reinforced by Emperor Frederick II and rebuilt by Alphonso II of Naples in 1485–98. It has an irregular plan with five sides, with a moat running along the entire perimeter. In origin it had a single entrance, reachable through a draw-bridge. Towers include three cylindrical ones and a bastion called Punta di Diamante ("Diamond's Head"). The entrance sports the coat of arms of Emperor Charles V.
• The Cathedral, consecrated in 1088, a work of Count Roger I adorned later (about 1163), by Bishop Jonathas, with a mosaic floor; it has a rose window and side portal of 1481. The interior, a basilica with nave and two aisles, contains columns said to come from a temple of Minerva and a fine mosaic pavement of 1166, with interesting representations of the months, Old Testament subjects and others.{{sfn|Ashby|1911}} Bones and relics of the Martyrs of Otranto, who perished in the 15th-century siege surround the high altar. The church has a crypt supported by 42 marble columns. The same Count Roger also founded a Basilian monastery here, which, under Abbot Nicetas, became a place of study; its library was nearly all bought by Bessarion.
• The church of San Pietro, with Byzantine frescoes.
• The catacombs of Torre Pinta.
• Idro, a small river which the toponym Otranto stems from.

Otranto is the setting of Horace Walpole's book The Castle of Otranto, which is generally held to be the first Gothic novel. Walpole had chosen the town from a map of the Kingdom of Naples because the name was "well-sounding"; he was not aware that Otranto had a castle until 1786, some twenty-two years after the novel was first published under a pseudonym. The principal model for the castle was his villa in Strawberry Hill, London.{{Cite book|title=The Castle of Otranto|last1=Walpole|first1=Horace|last2=Clery|first2=E.J.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2008|isbn=9780199537211|editor-last=Lewis|editor-first=W.S.|edition=Oxford World's Classics|location=Oxford|pages=117|orig-year=1764}}, Carlo Stasi, Otranto nel Mondo. Dal "Castello" di Walpole al "Barone" di Voltaire (Editrice Salentina, Galatina 2018) {{ISBN|978-88-31964-06-7}}

Otranto is also mentioned in Bram Stoker's novel The Lady of the Shroud.

{{See also|List of twin towns and sister cities in Italy}}

Otranto is twinned with:

• {{flagicon|ALB}} Sarandë, Albania

• Bishopric of Otranto
• Martyrs of Otranto
• Otranto Tragedy
• Ottoman invasion of Otranto

• {{EB1911|wstitle=Otranto|volume=20|page=367|first=Thomas|last=Ashby|author-link=Thomas Ashby (archaeologist)}}
• {{Catholic|wstitle=Otranto}}
• [http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/napoleon.htm#duches Heraldica.org- Napoleonic]
• [http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/otra0.htm GigaCatholic]

{{reflist}}

• {{commons category-inline}}
• {{Wikivoyage inline}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040919234826/http://www.arcidiocesi.otranto.le.it/ archdiocsan website] {{in lang|it}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070527233325/http://www.paradoxplace.com/Perspectives/Sicily%20%26%20S%20Italy/Puglia/Otranto/Otranto.htm Adrian Fletcher's Paradoxplace – Otranto Cathedral Mosaics Photo Page]
• [http://www.webvisionitaly.com/category.php?id=251&ref_genre=&ref_item=310 Otrano Video in English]

{{Province of Lecce}}

{{Magna Graecia}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Colonies of Magna Graecia

Category:Castles in Italy

Category:Coastal towns in Apulia

Category:Localities of Salento

Category:Port cities and towns of the Adriatic Sea

Category:Territories of the Republic of Venice

Category:Borghi più belli d'Italia