page_title: Lanciano
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lanciano / History
context_page_description: Lanciano is a town and comune in the province of Chieti, part of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. It has 36,304 inhabitants as of 2011. The town is known for the first recorded Catholic Eucharistic Miracle.
context_section_description: The ancient Roman name of Lanciano was Anxanum, a city of the Frentani Italic tribe. The city is said to have been founded in 1181 BC by Solimus, a Trojan refugee arrived in Italy along with Aeneas. Legends aside, archaeological findings have shown that the area was settled from the 5th millennium BC.
  Under the Frentani it was probably under the influence of [Greater Greece]. After the end of the Samnite Wars, which saw the Frentani allied with the Romans, Lancianum obtained the status of municipium. It was probably a flourishing commercial site, across an ancient and important trade route connecting Pescara to Apulia.
  During the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Lanciano was sacked by the Goths, and was destroyed during the Lombard invasion (c. 571 AD). A new settlement was then created around a castle built by the new rulers. In 610, however, it was conquered by the Byzantines, who annexed it to the Duchy of Teate (Chieti) and allowed the trades to restart. In the late 8th century Lanciano was conquered by the Franks, who included it in the Duchy of Spoleto.
  In 1060 the Normans made it a centre of the unified Kingdom of Sicily. Lanciano flourished again and in 1340 it was the largest city in Abruzzo with 6,500 inhabitants, renowned industries (ceramics, wool, silk, goldworks, ironworks), receiving important privileges by both Frederick II and his son Manfred, with a substantial administrative autonomy. Charles I, King of Sicily, assigned the revenues of the city's port to the Vatican Basilica. Later it was frequently at war with nearby Ortona.
  It was here that Pope Gregory XII, fleeing from Cividale, landed on Neapolitan territory (1409), and went thence to Gaeta. After the end of the Italian Wars, the new Spanish rule and the shift of commerce due to the discovery of America impoverished Lanciano, which, in 1640, became a baronial possession.
  Later, the city took the part of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 and rose against the Bourbon kings in 1848, 1849 and 1853. In 1860 it voted for annexation to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.
  During World War II it was an active center of the Resistance against the German occupation. On 6 October 1943 Italian citizens attacked German soldiers  (revolt of the martyrs of October 1943). In 1952 it was awarded the Gold Medal to Military Valour by President Luigi Einaudi.
caption: Plebiscite Square in Lanciano.
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