Of the five piers of the city port - Ponente, Levante, Foraneo and 3 January - it is the only one to bear the name of a historical figure.
An important name: that of Manfredi, the king of Sicily, son of Frederick II, who in the period in which he ruled the southern kingdom, recognized a leading role in the city of Salerno. And it gave a great boost to its economy, providing it with a commercial port that soon assumed considerable importance. Thus the pier that today bears his name was built in the first years of the second half of the thirteenth century, precisely by the will of the king and his powerful adviser Giovanni da Procida.
After the Swabian era, with the advent of the Angevins, Naples became the new capital of the kingdom and King Charles preferred to invest in it and, therefore, also in its port development, which led it to surpass Salerno, although the latter's landing place maintained a notable commercial vivacity. However, it decreased over time, hand in hand with the "aging" of the ancient port and with the progressive detachment between the city and its sea. Only with the Bourbons, since the times of King Charles, did we begin to think about the recovery of the centrality of the port and, in general, of the maritime dimension of Salerno.
However, a couple of centuries still had to pass before the port of Salerno began to be recovered, expanded and strengthened, restoring its full functionality and fame as a commercial port, in relation to the other ports of the Mediterranean.
A rebirth that in 2010 earned the Salerno airport the recognition of the best European port for handling goods and passengers compared to its size: 500,000 square meters of land area, nine docks and five piers. Subsequently, it was included among the key ports of the European Union and in the Motorways of the Sea system.
The Manfredi pier, which is the oldest part of the port close to the city center, was dedicated to tourism and maritime connections with the other coastal towns of Campania. And it has been identified as a cruise port. For this function, the new maritime station was built, based on a project by the Anglo-Iraqi archistar Zaha Hadid, of which it represents the latest, award-winning work with an unmistakable style. It was inaugurated on 25 April 2016, shortly before the death of the architect, who had conceived it as a terminal with all the services intended for cruise passengers, but also as a multifunctional space, which welcomes artistic and cultural activities and initiatives.
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