Teramo

Teramo, an episcopal see of the Abruzzi, Italy, the capital of the province of Teramo, 16 m. by rail W.S.W. of Giulianova, a junction on the Ancona-Brindisi railway. Pop. (1901) 10,508 (town); 24,091 (commune). The town stands on the left bank of the Tordino, where it is joined by the Vezzola, at an altitude of 876 ft. above sea-level. The picturesque valley of the Tordino is here dominated by the peaks of the Gran Sasso d'Italia. The town is traversed by one straight wide street with large houses, but for the most part it consists of narrow lanes. The cathedral has a Romanesque Gothic portal of 1332 by a Roman marble worker named Deodatus, and the interior is decorated in the Baroque style, but still retains the pointed vaulting of 1154, introduced into Italy by French Benedictines; it contains a splendid silver antependium by the 15th-century goldsmith Nicolo di Guardiagrele (1433-48). The tower is fine. The church of S. Antonio is also in the Romanesque Gothic style. Under the church of S. Anna dei Pompetti remains of Roman houses and of the original cathedral have been discovered (F. Savini in Notizie degli scavi, 1898, 137). In the Communal Gallery is an altarpiece from the cathedral by the Venetian Jacobello del Fiore (1400-1439). The antiquities include remains of a gateway, a theatre and baths, as well as numerous inscriptions. There are manufactures of wool and silk, and of straw hats and pottery.

The ancient Interamna Praetuttiorum (so called to distinguish it from Interamna Lirenas and Interamna Nahars) was the chief town of the tribe of the Praetuttii. Its pre-Roman necropolis was discovered in 1905 (F. Savini in Notizie degli scavi, 1905, 267). Of its municipal constitution little is known, indeed in an inscription of the end of the Republic it is spoken of both as a colonic and a municipium. It was situated on a branch of the Via Caecilia. Remains of an amphitheatre still exist. In the valley of the Vomano near Montorio was a Roman village, probably dependent on Interamna, with a temple of Hercules (Corp. inscr. Lat., ix. p. 484).

See V. Bindi, Monumenti degli Abruzzi (Naples, 1889), 1 sqq.