Salerno is a city and comune in Campania, southern Italy, and the capital of the province of the same name. With 125,958 inhabitants as of 2025, it is the second most populous municipality in the region after Naples. The city lies on the Gulf of Salerno, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Salerno city’s origins are probably Magna Greece, though the dated archaeological evidence cited is a 6th-century BC Etruscan-Campanian necropolis; the clearer Magna Graecia link is nearby Poseidonia/Paestum. Salerno was home to the Schola Medica Salernitana, one of the earliest medical institutions in Europe, active by the 11th century and widely regarded as a forerunner of the modern university. From February to August 1944 it served as the seat of the Italian government, hosting the Badoglio and Bonomi cabinets at the Salone dei Marmi. It was during this period that the Italian Communist Party agreed to join a national unity government, a decision known as the "Salerno turn" that opened the way to the Allied reconquest of the peninsula. For these months the city was effectively Italy's capital city, and it was here that Victor Emmanuel III settled after leaving Rome in the wake of the Armistice of Cassibile.