Since several months the bell-tower of the Cathedral atGaeta, one of
the most important Romanrsque buildings in South Italy, is under repair;
the Superintendence of Lazio supervises the work, the scientific direction
being to architect Licopoli.
The bell-tower was built in the second half of the twelfth century: the
works began in the 1148 under the direction of the marmorarius Nicola
di Angelo and ended in 1279. In this period Gaeta was a powerful city,
able to struggle against Pisa and Amalfi to control trading in the Mediterranean
Sea: the re-utilisation of ancient materials in the construction of the
new bell-tower shows the long history, the tradition and the wealth of
the city (auctoritas).
27 pieces of the frieze and the inscription L-ATRA(tinus) (CIL X,
6138), re-employed in the east side of the base of the monument, belong
to the mausuleum of L.Sempronius Atratinus in Gaeta. Professor
L.Gasperini reads the name L.Munantius Plancus on a fragment of
an inscription re-empolyed in the east side of the bell-tower: the famous
roman political man had a villa in Gaeta, from whom could come the
fragment. The medieval cippus re-employed as west edge of the monument,
belongs to the tower of Iohannes, Ipata of Gaeta, built on
the west bank of the river Garigliano.
Plate n.1 from G.Fiengo, Gaeta: monumenti e storia urbanistica, Napoli 1971, p.75.
I would like to thank Alessandra Ghelli for the informations about the restoration of the bell-tower.
Giuseppe Mesolella