Brindisi

Brindisi (classic Brundusium or Brundisium), an ancient fortified port in the province of Lecco, standing at the head of a bay in the Adriatic 45 miles N.E. of Taranto. It was an important harbour in the best days of Rome, being the port of embarcation for Greece and the Levant. Horace describes his journey thither (Sat. i. v.), and Virgil died there on his way home from Megara. Many of the Crusaders sailed thence to Palestine. For a long period it sank into neglect, and the harbour became choked up, but in 1870 the route to India via Marseilles being closed by the war, it was selected as the starting-point of the British mail-steamers, and has served that purpose ever since. It is connected by railway with Turin, Rome, and Naples, and the accommodation for shipping, though still defective, has been greatly improved.