The town lies at the centre of the Gulf, at the mouth of the Irno River valley, not far from Piana del Sele towards which it is rapidly expanding.
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It was a Roman colony in 197 BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was conquered by the Goths, Byzantines and, in 646, by the Lombards, who annexed it to the duchy of Benevento.
In 839 it became the capital of an independent Lombard principality and later raided by the Saracens. Robert Guiscard, the Norman ruler, conquered Salerno in 1077, making it the capital of his dominions.
The foundation of the famous Scuola Medica Salernitana (school of medicine) enhanced its importance.
Under the Swabian rulers, it declined with the growing importance of Naples, and in the 15th century the Angevins granted it in feud to the Colonna family, then later to the Orsinis, Sanseverinos and Grimaldis. It shared the fortunes of Naples after 1590 until the unification of Italy.
It is structured in three distinct nuclei, the medieval part, on the slopes behind the coast, characterized by narrow winding streets, the eighteenth century area beyond the old walls, and the modern town, built after the Second World War, mainly towards the south, often in a haphazard sprawl.
