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Not all the scholars agree about the fact that the MARCIANO was located in immediate closeness to the Solfatara. For instance, the archaeologist Werner Johannowsky, talking about the places crossed by via Antiniana, affirms textually:
" On this street it probably existed also a MARCIANUM, witness of the lives of St. Gennaro, partly reported by Mallardo. Till now nobody was able to localize in a persuasive way this locality, where it had been probably laid the body of the martyr before the definitive transportation to Neapolis. But there is still today a lane called MARZANO [via CINTIA ], which corresponds to an ancient street which was linked to the Puteolis Neapolim one, near Terracina. It is evident that this name, which till now has escaped the attention of the scholars, cannot derive from Marciano, which was maybe located in the vicinity or at one of the extremities of this lane. Nor it stirs astonishment the presence of this toponym in the Neapolitan territory, as the gens Marcia, widely attested in Puteoli, was present also in Neapolis, where a Marcianus Felix had been archon. So it is at least very likely that this Marcianum was the locality where from the most ancient section of the Puteolis-Neapolimroad, they parted the road which arrives to Pianura and over and, as it seems, also the 'via per cryptam'.
In this place, which probably became after the opening of the crypt a sort of cross-roads, it developed as a consequence a small inhabited centre as it is demonstrated by the presence of public Thermae and of buildings also at a certain distance from the road. Moreover we are nearly in the middle between the two cities, which are both less than five miles far from here and so in the more suitable place for a statio, which was probably the only one along this way. In fact, also along the Puteolis - Capuam road the first stationes were located, as it is proved more than by the toponym Quarto, by the existences of buildings with a function of horrea [=warehouses, barns], at the IV and at the V milestone from Puteoli. Finally the zone between Terracina and Agnano was, beyond the hollow of Agnano and the upland of Antignano, the only cultivable wide area and so suitable for the development of big praedia [farms, funds, proprieties] in the zone crossed by the original branch of the Puteolis Neapolim road, along which probably happened the traslatio sancti Januarii, while on the other hand there are in proximity to this rest place and precisely on St. Angelo hill, ruins which seem to belong to a chapel of the early Christian age. TWO NEW THESES Enlarging our knowledge about this territory, we also red this research of the archaeologist Werner Johannowsky about Via Antiniana. And when we found that also here it was mentioned a "praedium Marcianum" which, according to the author was located in the vicinity of Pianura, and famous for the burial of St. Gennaro, we fused our knowledge, studied the question and put forward other two new theses about the collocation and the identification of this locality; theses which partly are different from the ones proposed by Johannowsky. According to one of our theories, this "praedium Marcianum" or Marciano was located in the territory of Pianura; while according to the other one it is situated in its immediate closeness (LA CINTIA). Anyway, both these theses locate the MARCIANO or near the north extremity of the MARZANO lane or in proximity to this place; hypotheses which also Johannowsky did not rejected. In the next chapters we will expose these theses, after an introductive passage about the Colli Leucogei. (Go back to the index) |
