Overview The city of
Turenum appears for the first time in the , a 13th-century copy of an ancient Roman
itinerary. The name, also spelled
Tirenum, was that of the
Greek hero Diomedes. The city was later occupied by the
Lombards and the
Byzantines. First certain news of an urban settlement in Trani, however, trace back only to the 9th century. The most flourishing age of Trani was the 11th century, when it became an
episcopal see in place of
Canosa, destroyed by the
Saracens. Its port, well placed for the
Crusades, then developed greatly, becoming the most important on the
Adriatic Sea. In the year 1063 Trani issued the
Ordinamenta et consuetudo maris, which is "the oldest surviving maritime law code of the Latin West". There was also Jewish community in Trani, which was under the protection of the king until it was given to the Archbishop
Samarus during the reign of
Henry VI at the end of the 12th century. In that period many great families from the main Italian Maritime Republics (
Amalfi,
Pisa,
Genova,
Ragusa and
Venice) established themselves in Trani. Trani, in turn, maintained a
consul in
Venice from 12th century. The presence of other consulates in many northern Europe centres, even in England and Netherlands, shows Trani's trading and political importance in the Middle Ages. Emperor
Frederick II built a massive castle in Trani. Under his rule, in the early 13th century, the city reached its highest point of wealth and prosperity. There was some economic progress during the nineteenth century, and by 1881 the population had reached 25,647. Trani at this time was an important trading point for wines, fruits and grain.
Jewish history Benjamin of Tudela visited Trani in around 1159, following this visit he found 200 Jewish families living there. By the 12th century, Trani already housed one of the largest
Jewish communities of
Southern Italy, and was the birthplace of one of the greatest medieval rabbis of Italy:
Rabbi Isaiah ben Mali di Trani (c. 1180–1250), a prolific and prominent commentator and
halakhic authority. The great
talmudist Rabbi
Moses ben Joseph di Trani (1505–1585) was born in
Thessaloniki, three years after his family had fled there from Trani due to
antisemitic persecution. Trani entered a crisis under the
Anjou and
Aragonese rule (14th–16th centuries), as its Jewish component was persecuted under Dominican pressure. Under the
House of Bourbon, however, Trani recovered a certain splendour, thanks to the generally improved condition of Southern Italy economy and the construction of several magnificent buildings. Trani was province capital until the
Napoleonic age, when
Joachim Murat deprived it of this status in favour of
Bari. In 1799, moreover, the French troops provoked a massacre of Trani's population, as it had adhered to the
Neapolitan Republic. The
Scolanova Synagogue survives and, after many centuries as a church, has been rededicated as a synagogue. The church of
Sant'Anna is another medieval former synagogue which was deconsecrated and returned to the Jewish community in 2004. ==Geography==