Tursi

Tursi (Turse in Tursitano dialect; Ancient Greek: Θυρσοί, romanized: Thursoí; Latin: Tursium) is an Italian comune of 4,712 inhabitants in the province of Matera in Basilicata, elevated to a city by decree of the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on May 4, 2006. The municipality is home to the Basso Sinni mountain community. The urban center began to develop in the 5th century around the castle, in 1561 it was among the most populous, and in 1601 it was the city in the province of the kingdom with the largest number of fires, numbering 1799, ahead of Melfi (1772), Venosa (1095), Potenza (1082) and Tricarico (1073). In 968, in Byzantine times, Tursi became the capital of the theme of Lucania, and an episcopal see of the Greek rite. From the beginning of the 18th century and until the Bourbon reform of 1816 (except in 1799, when it was annexed to the department of Crati, i.e., Cosentian Calabria), Tursi was the first of the four subdivisions of the then province of Basilicata, the Royal Collector of Basilicata was based there, and its boundaries, which extended to the Ionian Sea, included the tower of Trisaja, south of the mouth of the Sinni River, one of the seven coastal towers of the Kingdom of Naples protecting the Ionian coast of Basilicata.