TERAMO  , an episcopal see of the Abruzzi,

Italy, the capital of the province of Teramo, 16 m. by rail W.S.W. of Giulianova, a junction on the Ancona-Brindisi railway . Pop . (1901) 10,508 (town); 24,091 (commune) . The town stands on the left bank of the Tordino, where it is joined by the Vezzola, at an altitude of 876 ft. above sea-level . The picturesque valley of the Tordino is here dominated by the peaks of the Gran Sasso d'Italia . The town 1s traversed by one straight wide street with large houses, but for the most part it consists of narrow lanes . The cathedral has a Romanesque Gothic portal of 1332 by a Roman marble worker named Deodatus, and the interior is decorated in the Baroque style, but still retains the pointed vaulting of 1154, introduced into Italy by French Benedictines; it contains a splendid silver antependium by the 15th-century goldsmith Nicolo di Guardiagrele (1433-48) . The tower is fine . The church of S . Antonio is also in the Romanesque Gothic style . Under the church of S . Anna dei Pompetti remains of Roman houses and of the original cathedral have been discovered (F .

Savini in Notizie degli scavi, 1898, 137) . In the Communal

Gallery is an altarpiece from the cathedral by the Venetian Jacobello del Fiore (140o—143c) . The antiquities include remains of a gateway, a theatre and baths, as well as numerous inscriptions . There are manufactures of wool and silk, and of straw hats and pottery . The ancient Interamna Praetuttiornm (so called to distinguish it from Interamna Lirenas and Interamna Nahars) was the chief town of the tribe of the Praetuttii . Its pre-Roman necropolis was discovered in 1905 (F . Savini in Notizie degli scavi, 1905, 267) . Of its municipal constitution little is known, indeed in an inscription of the end of the Republic it is spoken of both as a colonia and a municipium . It was situated on a branch of the Via Caecilia (q.v.) . Remains of an amphitheatre still exist . In the valley of the Vomano near Monterio was a Roman village, probably dependent on Interamna, with a temple of Hercules (Corp. inscr . Lat., ix. p .

484) . See V .

Hindi, Monumenti degli Abruzzi (Naples, 1889), r sqq .