nucleo storico, collinare, San Clemente

The historical core of San Clemente, the central hamlet of Nocera Superiore, is a place where layers of civilisation sit uneasily on top of one another. The ancient Osco-Etruscan, later Roman, city of Nuceria Alfaterna probably stood on this very spot. Excavations at the former cattle market have turned up structures from the second to first centuries BC. The city’s loyalty to Rome proved costly: Hannibal destroyed it in 216 BC, though it later became a Roman colony under Augustus.

The Christian era left its mark in the early Christian church of Santa Maria Maggiore, known as La Rotonda, founded in the late sixth century. Earthquakes, notably the devastating one of 1980, have shaped the architectural heritage. The current Mother Church, begun in 1826 and opened in 1854, was rendered unusable by that quake, reopening only in 2003. A short distance away, the earlier cathedral had moved from the sixth-century baptistery to a chapel of Saint Catherine, before the present church was built. The past here is not buried; it is simply waiting.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.