Ortona
town and municipality in the Province of Chieti, Italy
Ortona (Abruzzese: Urtónë; Ancient Greek: Ὄρτων, romanized: Órtōn) is a coastal town and municipality of the Province of Chieti in the Italian region of Abruzzo, with some 23,000 inhabitants.
In 1943, Ortona was the site of the bloody Battle of Ortona, known as "Western Stalingrad". A patron saint of Ortona is Saint Thomas the Apostle (Tommaso), whose relics were brought to Ortona in the 13th century by a sailor and are kept in the Cathedral of Saint Thomas.
History
The origins of Ortona are uncertain. Presumably, it was first inhabited by the Frentani, an Italic population. In 2005, during works near the Castle, a Bronze Age settlement was discovered, and the Roman town largely coincided with this first settlement. Some sections of paved roads and urban walls, as well as some archaeological findings are the only remains of this period. Ortona remained a part of the Eastern Roman Empire for several centuries, before it was annexed by the Kingdom of the Lombards. In 803, the Franks incorporated Ortona into the county of Chieti. From that date on, the town remained tied to Chieti and its territory.
“Ortona” enters the record as town and municipality in the Province of Chieti, Italy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ortona, town and municipality can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ortona” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ortona, town and municipality provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q51256. VIAF identifies the subject as 236993041. The Library of Congress control number is n80089402. Authority coordinates are 42.356, 14.404. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943 and 2005.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ortona”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ortona primary sources, Ortona archive and Ortona research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ortona” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.