A historical outline
The origins of Sulmona are wrapped up in the veil of a legend. Ovid and Silius Italicus say that it was founded by the Phrygian hero Solimo, spouse of a daughter of Aeneas’s with the latter, surviving the massacre of Troy, and landing at the mouth of the Tiber, he would have founded the city, which probably took its name from him. But Solimo is a legendary character. The first historical news of Sulmona dates back to the 3rd century b.C. and it is given to us by Titus Livy in the 3rd Decade. In 90 b.C, when the Italic people made an alliance against Rome, Sulmona sided with the rebels, who in the following year obtained the Roman citizenship.
There is little and uncertain news about the city in the early Middle Ages; however Sulmona reached a supremacy among all the other cities in Abruzzo at the time of the Swabians: Frederic II founded here a Faculty of Canon Law, appointed the city the seat of the Regional Curia, and granted it ample privileges.
But when the Swabians fell down, Sulmona was depressed by the Angevins, who did not forgive it for having followed the destiny of the former up to the battle of Benevento. In spite of the humiliations suffered, the city gave to the letters, in the 14th century, great men, among whom we must mention Marco Barbato and Giovanni Quatrario, Petrarch’s friends, and Francesco de Aristotele, celebrated humanist and canonist, Rector of the Faculty of Padua.
Sulmona came to new life with Charles III of Durazzo and with Ladislao. At that time it also grew in prestige for giving to the papal throne one of its learned prelates, Cosimo Meliorati, who was Pope Innocent VII.
At the end of 1500 the humanist Ercole Ciofano introduced the art of printing. Sulmona professes a particular cult, more and more present during the centuries, for its immortal son, ovid.
An artistic route
The visitor who enters Sulmona, coming from the North side, suddenly faces the three imposing apses of the Cathedral-Basilica of San Panfilo. The most ancient part of it is the crypt, built by Bishop Trasmondo in 1075. The upper church was completed in 1119, but of the old construction there only remain the pillars dividing the nave and the two aisles. The Gothic facade was built at the end of 1300, but the upper bay is a reconstruction dating from the 18th century.
The historical centre, which starts with Corso Ovidio, shows a great many monuments, both along the Corso itself and in the adjoining districts. Along Corso Ovidio, on the left, after about 50 metres, at the end of a blind alley, there are remains of the «Palazzo Sanità» with a «Durazzesco» style portal, mullioned windows with two lights, and, in the inside, frescoes of 1400; on the right, in Via Ercole Ciofano, the «Palazzo Tabassi» with a portal in the same style and a Gothic mullioned window with two lights of 1400.
After a short distance the Corso leads to a broad square, on the right side of which is the «Palazzo della SS. Annunziata», one of the most original and magnificent monuments in Southern Italy, built in three separate periods: the first part in 1415, the second one in 1483, the last one in 1522. Next to this palace there is the Church of the SS. Annunziata, of a Baroque mixture, built in 1710.
A few steps further, always on the right, there is «Piazza XX Settembre», with the bronze monument to Ovid, a work by Ettore Ferrari; on the corner, between the Corso and the Piazza, there is the «Palazzo di Giovanni dalle Palle Veneziano» (1484), which shows traces of the Venetian architecture of the time in the keel arches of the portals.
Walking further along the Corso, after passing by Via Panfilo Mazara, and after stopping to admire the Gothic portal of the Church of San Francesco della Scarpa, we meet the «Fontana del Vecchio» (1474), located at the end of the Medieval aqueduct of 1256, recently brought to light in its marvellous and full beauty.
On the right there is the magnificent Romanic portal leading to the presbitery of the Church of San Francesco della Scarpa. From the arches of the Medieval aqueduct one sees, at the end of the splendid «Piazza Garibaldi», the Gothic facade of the Church of San Filippo, initially belonging to the Church of Sant’Agostino, which was torn down later on.
Leaving the aqueduct, after less than 30 metres, there is «Piazza Plebiscito»; in it one can see the Church of Santa Maria della Tomba (14th century). Where Corso Ovidio finishes, there stands «Porta Napoli» (beginning of the 14th century).
In Via Quatrario and in Via Morrone there are groups of Medieval houses.
Just over 3 miles east from Sulmona, we come across the «Badia Morronese», founded in 1241, which became the seat of the Supreme Abbot of the Celestine Order. In the inside, to the left of a magnificent Greek cross-shaped church, there is the «Cappella Caldora» with frescoes of the 15th century and a sarcophagus sculptured by Gualtiero de Alemania.
Ascending Mount Morrone from the Abbey visitors first see the ruins of an imposing Roman temple dedicated to Hercules, most of it excavated some years ago, and formerly believed to be «Ovid’s Villa»; and then, more upwards, the hermitage of Sant’Onofrio with the cell, decorated with frescoes of the 13th century, where Pietro del Morrone lived like an anchoret, before ascending the papal throne as Pope Celestine V.