Taranto : Italy
From Renaissance to unification
In March 1502, the Spanish fleet of Ferdinand II of Aragon, allied to Louis XII of France, seized the port of Taranto, and conquered the city.
1570 Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria set his fleet of 49 galleys in Mar Grande to repair and supply his ships. Among the people on the fleet there was Miguel de Cervantes. The fleet later united to the other parts of the Christian League, and defeated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto: also some Tarantine nobles took part to the battle.
1647 The insurrection of Masaniello in Naples reached also Taranto.
1714 After the Treaty of Rastatt, Spain was obliged to handle the Kingdom of Naples to Austria.
1746 Taranto had 11,526 inhabitants. All of them were packed in the small island, among a high number of religious institutes and churches.
1765 Francesco Antonio Calo’, a Tarantine noble, started with two statues the Misteries of the Holy Week celebrations. They are today the most important and attended event of Taranto.
1799 Between 8 February and 8 March Taranto joined the Parthenopaean Republic.
1801-15 After the defeat of Ferdinand IV of Naples at Monteregio and the subsequent Peace of Florence, the French general Nicolas Soult occupied with 13,000 soldiers the provinces of Bari, Lecce and the harbour of Taranto. Napoleon wanted to build a stronghold to keep under pression the British base of Malta. On 23 April 1801, 6,000 French soldiers of the Arme d’observation du midi entered in Taranto (20.000 inhabitants at the time) and fortified it in order to obtain “a sort of Gibitrair” (Napoleon). On 25 March 1802, France and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens, which required France to leave South Italy, but after UK declaration of war against France, the Arme d’observation du midi returned to Taranto, under the command of general Laurent Gouvion de Saint Cyr, on 23 May 1803. Among the French officers in Taranto, there is also the novelist Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, artillery general and fortification expert, who died in Taranto on 5 September 1803. On 15 February, Joseph Bonaparte became King of Naples, and on 3 May visited the fortifications of Taranto. The presence of the French troops, and the military related works gave several advantages to Tarentine economy. With the fall of Napoleon and the defeat of Joachim Murat at the battle of Tolentino, Southern Italy, and Taranto, returned under Bourbons rule, forming the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
1860 On 9 September, Taranto become part of the temporary government founded by Giuseppe Garibaldi after his conquest of Two Sicilies. In the following year, the whole Southern Italy is annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which became the Kingdom of Italy. In this years Taranto has 27,000 inhabitants.
1866 Between May and June, the newly formed Regia Marina the Kingdom of Italy navy resulted from the unification of Sardinian, Neapolitan-Sicilian, Tuscan and Pontificial navies was collected in Taranto harbour, in occasion of the imminent war declaration against Austria (Third Independece War). On 21 June, one day late to allow Admiral Carlo di Persano to receive Tarentine honorary citizenship, the fleet left for the Adriatic Sea. After the defeat of the Italian fleet at Lissa, Persano was put under trial for incompetence and cowardice, and his easy days in Taranto indicated as part of his bad behaviour.
