Benevento

Benevento, city in southern Italy, capital of Benevento Province in the Campania region, on a hill between the Calore and Sabbato rivers. The city is an archiepiscopal see and the commercial centre of an agricultural region. Manufactured goods include agricultural machinery, foodstuffs, and alcohol. The original name, as chief town of the Samnites in the 4th century bc, was Maleventum (“ill wind”). After the Roman victory over King Pyrrhus of Epirus at Maleventum, the name was changed to Beneventum (“fair wind”). In the 6th century ad the Lombards made it the capital of an independent duchy. From 1053 until the establishment of the modern Italian state in 1861, Benevento belonged, except for a brief period, to the Papal States. Population 62,958 (2007 estimate).