Salerno

Salerno is a city and comune in Campania, southern Italy, and the capital of the province of the same name, with 125,958 inhabitants as of 2025, making it the region's second most populous municipality after Naples. It lies on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea and was home to the Schola Medica Salernitana, one of the earliest medical institutions in Europe, active by the 11th century and widely regarded as a forerunner of the modern university. From February to August 1944 the city served as the seat of the Italian government, hosting the Badoglio and Bonomi cabinets and King Victor Emmanuel III after he left Rome following the Armistice of Cassibile, and it was there that the Italian Communist Party agreed to join a national unity government, a decision known as the Salerno turn that opened the way to the Allied advance up the peninsula.