A plaque, found in the waves next to the ruins of the ancient port, confirms this vocation and was placed in the Cathedral. The plaque bears this inscription: "The year of the Lord 1260, Manfredi, Magnificent Lord King of Sicily, son of Emperor Frederick, through the intervention of Messer Giovanni da Procida, great citizen of Salerno, Lord of the Island of Procida, Tramonti, Caiano and Baronia di Postiglione, and a friend and family member of the King himself, had this port built ".

Other places to visit nearby

Excavations in 2011 brought to light traces of the ancient fortification walls of the city and, as mentioned, of the pre-existing church of the 1400s as well as the various ossuaries located in the basement, at the side chapels of the church.  The new building was built in 1627, with the name of Santissima Annunziata Nuova, and replaced the old which, in 1626, was destroyed by a flood. Today the church, with a longitudinal plan with a presbytery covered by a dome, shows a marked 18th-century style. Ferdinando Sanfelice in 1737 was responsible for the elegant bell tower with four superimposed orders, completed by a pinnacle spire, connected by volutes.

Chiesa di Santa Trofimena - It is said that this small church which today constitutes the entrance to the Fornelle district of Salerno was built to be used ... just one night! In fact, in the "Chronicon Salernitanum" we read that a church in honor of Santa Trofimena was built in 839 by Radelchi, prince of Benevento, to allow the saint's relics to pass through on the way back to the town of Minori, from where his predecessor. Sicardo had raided them; an act of reconciliation by the Prince of Benevento towards the Amalfitans, whom Sicardo had deported to Salerno after having conquered their city. Owning relics, at the time, was a status symbol, and the vestiges of the saints could be both a precious spoils of war to remind the conquered cities who the new masters were. Excavations conducted in the 1990s revealed a first level, under the current building, a full-blown Lombard-style church, with three naves and three semicircular apses, later reused as a cemetery. Not only that, among the filling material were found fragments of frescoes, now preserved in the Diocesan Museum, dated, according to the style, between the 9th and 10th centuries. Over the centuries, the church has been completely overturned, indeed even "overturned": in the 19th century it was almost completely rebuilt, the ancient entrance was closed and another was opened where the apse used to be.

Palazzo Pedace - Its stratification can give a sense of the urban evolution of the city. Located in via Portacatena, it rises above the ancient remains of Salerno . During the restoration of a room on the ground floor, there was the beautiful discovery: part of a medieval colonnade with pointed arches emerged. A small cross was carved on one of the columns. On the upper floor, however, a vault decorated with 18th century paintings was found. Today part of the building is the seat of the PST (Science and Technology Park) which occupies the large noble apartment on the second floor. In these spaces two beautiful frescoes are visible. The vault of the reception hall is frescoed with the painting of Erminia among the shepherds, while a connected room presents Joseph's dream. Even more ancient remains in the subsoil: during the archaeological excavations carried out between 1993 and 1994 in the Porta Catena area, some tombs from the 1st-2nd century AD came to light. and a dolium in excellent condition in an environment of the Palace, residential remains, from the late ancient period, in the area of the church of Santa Trofimena, and residues of the Roman beach in vicolo Guaimario.

Piazza Sedile del Campo - The word "Sedile"actually means just what it is, or rather it would be to say Seat. It was the place where the nobles defended their commercial and non-commercial interests. A small neighborhood parliament, where the elected members sat on the "seats" and the one who was elected head of the district sat on the "seat". In Salerno there were three seats: the Seat of Portanova, the Seat of Porta Rotese, and the Seat of the Campo, which had the homonymous squares as a reference point. The seat of the field, downstream from the Plaium Montis district, has included the flower of the Salerno nobility among the district leaders. The district includes the area of Largo Campo, formerly known as Campus Grani, as it is the site of the grain market. In medieval times it was the hub of city life and many commercial and financial activities were based in it, it even seems like a bank. At the corner with via Giovanni da Procida, street number 1 in Piazza Sedile del Campo is now a commercial establishment, but at the time it was the seat of the nobles of the Campo. 

Torre di Guaiferio - The Tower called di Guaiferio is located in the Municipio district and takes its name from the Lombard prince of the same name who, in 871, had the city walls reinforced with the construction of four new towers strategically located to counter the continuous raids of the Saracens. Today the tower is only partially visible to passers-by as over the centuries it has been gradually incorporated into the new buildings. However, the accentuated curvature of the smooth and compact original masonry is clearly visible, to which a relatively recent elevation, always circular, has been added.

Domus Romana in Vicolo della Neve - Around the end of the eighties, in the so-called Antica Corte district, at the corner between via Mercanti and the vicolo della Neve, during the renovation of a house a sumptuous Roman domus was found, intercepted at a depth of five meters with respect to the current road plan. It is a late antique house, 3rd-4th century AD, on two floors and built on a previous building from the early imperial age, 1st-2nd century AD, which perhaps originally overlooked the sea. The domus is characterized by an atrium with cocciopesto flooring and painted decoration on the walls with so-called garden scenes, which reproduce an ornament of trellises and reeds and gushing fountains. Upstream of the atrium there are probably the service areas of the house, as evidenced by the discovery of a cistern for collecting water. During the 5th century AD, a gradual phase of decline and then abandonment began for the building, due to a series of violent floods that led to the collapse and subsequent demolition of the domus which was later replaced by a structure wooden whose function it was not possible to define; structure which, in the early Middle Ages, was demolished due to recurrent flood events. Precisely because of these cyclical destructive natural phenomena, for some centuries, the area remained undeveloped and intended for agricultural use. Only during the 12th century, in the area there were structures destined to host artisanal activities, becoming part of that process of lively building growth in the Antica Corte district. VIDEO

Chiesa di San Salvatore de Drapparia - The Church in Drapparia, the latter ancient name of Via Mercanti, is a place of worship and faith, still active today. Until recently, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was held here. A place of worship that pre-existed the current church, dates back to 1423. The construction was financed by a certain Pacilio Surdo, a nobleman from the Portanova seat. Around 1580 the church was enlarged and assumed its current shape. At the beginning of 1500 it had become the seat of the brotherhood of master tailors who named it the church of San Salvatore in Drapparia. The church currently has a baroque appearance characterized by the portal surmounted by three putti in high relief. The interior has an octagonal plan closed by a large dome with a lantern. In the 90s of the 1900s a vast campaign of archaeological excavations was carried out inside the church. The aim was to bring to light a part of the Reggia di Arechi II. From the excavations emerged the remains of a Roman thermal structure from the 1st-2nd century, the walls of the Lombard period and a series of coins made up of copper fullers, silver deniers and gold tarì, traces of Angevin floor and craft shops. In the foundations of the church, recent archaeological research has revealed the following stratification phases in order, from bottom to top:

• Church (1423) - built by Pacifeo Surdo (o Turdo) on the remains of previous workshops.

• Medieval shops and wells - (11th-15th AD) their foundations are made up of the balneum basins and the remains of the palace walls.

• Medieval balneum - (8th-11th AD) frigidarium (cold bath) of a public spa (for a fee) with a double marble tub with steps. The balneum exploited the waters of the canals in the area.

• Medieval walls - (5th-8th century AD) belonging to the Arechian palace, then abandoned for fear of Saracen pirates.

• Drainage channels (Roman phase) - (5th-8th century AD) belonging to the calidarium (hot bath) of the S.Pietro a Corte spa. Furthermore, on the floor of the shops, some coins were found, almost all welded into a single block for oxidation and without containers; the nest egg dates back to a period ranging from the 11th to the 13th century AD; it is made up of 7 gold tarì, 52 copper fullers and 6 silver coins, of which 3 from Le Puy, a city in the south of France, which demonstrates that Salerno of the time had relations with the rest of Europe .

The archaeological excavations have revealed an important marble bath under the church, accessible via three steps, receiving water from a second tank placed higher. This place worked until the 11th-12th century and surely was part of a bathroom of the Lombard palace. The building of a *balneum* was closely related to the necessity of finding a source of water and the northern-western area of Salerno, in the past as today, had numerous streams, canals and blades of water, some of which mentioned in the actual place names: “Via Fusandola”, “rise of the Lama” and “Via dei Canali”. The *balneum* of Salerno and the previous Roman baths received water from an aquifer placed in that area where there were numerous streams that went downhill from the mount Bonadies and fueled also gardens, fisheries and fountains. The Lombard *bath* worked until the 11th century, when the palace of Arechis II began to decline. 

Reggia di Arechi II - Is the only Lombard palace left in the world. The area of ​​the Palazzo was to extend from the Barbuti district to Vicolo Pietra del Pesce and was arranged longitudinally in a north-south axis; the north side was aligned with the present north wall of the church of S. Pietro a Corte; the south side must have coincided with via Pietra del Pesce that at the time overlooked the beach and the sea; the east side was probably just beyond the current Largo Antica Corte; the west side must have coincided with the alignment of the western facade of the Palatine church with via Pietra del Pesce. Some confirmations have recently been made on this last delimitation based on essays on the walls of the building adjacent to the Palatine Chapel, with access from Largo S. Pietro a Corte, and which largely occupied the area of ​​the Palace. On this wall, which corresponds to the southern continuation of the west facade of the Palatine Chapel, traces of the sequence of single-lancet windows that must have constituted the famous loggia of the Palace open to the west, which completes the features of the loggia, have been found during recent works carried out by the Superintendency. already brought to light in the 70s, divided by brick arches resting on pulvini, capitals and bare marble columns. The loggia is completed by a graceful mullioned window, placed on the north facade towards the western corner of the Chapel, made up of round brick arches, pulvinus supported by an early medieval capital and bare marble column. The loggia overlooked the western part of the city on a large "platea", crossed by a natural stream that is continuously fed and corresponding to the current Via dei Canali, located about ten, twelve meters below the "noble floor" of the Palace, helping to make the palace even more impressive but, at the same time, "open" towards the city.The Loggia was the first element of the city to "hit" the sailors entering the port which, at that time, was one of the pulsating centers of Mediterranean mercantile activities. With the fall of the Lombard authority and the construction of Terracena Castle, this "sacrum salernitanum vetustum palatium", as Duke William called it in May 1119, went into disuse and its courts were opened and sold by the state property as building land.