Telese Terme

• Name — Telese Terme • Official Name — Comune di Telese Terme • Region — Campania • Province — Benevento (BN) • Mayor — Pasquale Carofano • Area Total Km2 — 9 • Population Total — 5740 • Elevation M — 55 • Postal Code — 82037 • Area Code — 0824

Telesia is an old word for the gem Sapphire.

Telese was an ancient Samnite (Italic) city, known as T(h)elesia. Hannibal captured the city in 217 BCE; later, the victorious Roman general Scipio Africanus founded a Roman colony there. In 460, a Diocese of Telese / Thelesina (Latin adjective) was established. Having fallen into decay after the Gothic War, it was conquered by the Longobards, becoming part of the Lombard Duchy of Benevento as the seat of a gastaldry (district). Saracens destroyed the city in 847 and 860, and again in the 11th century, during the war between King Roger II of Sicily and the Norman counts of the southern Italian mainland. A new Telesia was built; however, it was again pulverized in 1349, this time by an earthquake. Its former cathedral cattedrale Santa Croce, dedicated to the Holy Cross, now in ruins, was decommissioned after the bishops transferred their see to nearby Cerreto Sannita, yet the see retained the alternative title Diocese of Telese as well, even after a further merger into the Diocese of Cerreto Sannita–Telese–Sant’Agata de’ Goti. In 1883, after the Unification of Italy, thermal baths were built, hence the current full name Telese Terme since 1991. Telese became an independent commune in 1934.

It possesses remains of walls in opus reticulatum, of a total length of over a mile; two inscriptions of the Republican period record the erection of towers. The remains of baths (Thermae Sabinianae) and of an amphitheatre still exist; the city was supplied with water by an aqueduct. There are sulphur springs in the vicinity, which may have supplied the baths.