There are several guesses about the name, and nearly all of them speak of water: from the Greek Nēros, a low damp place, or Nēritos, a wooded and pleasant one, or else from the Dalmatian river Narenta, whence the dialect form Narèta; the root nar- or ner-, found from Iberia to Illyria, seems to mean water. In Roman times the settlement stood where the San Martino district is today and was called Vicus Gallianus, probably the estate of one Gallio granted for military service. Destroyed, it was rebuilt further north and fortified where it stands now; and when Roger II fixed the border of the kingdom on the Tronto, the Casale Nereti became the Castrum Nereti, a frontier position.
The most unusual thing, though, is that Nereto had a city for a lord and not a baron. In 1383 Charles III of Durazzo sold these lands to the comune of Ascoli for fourteen thousand ducats, and on 12 September 1385 the men of Ascoli took possession, receiving the keys. Under Ascoli the place was governed collegially: an Ascolan governor and two sindacatori elected by the people of Nereto, with an assembly of heads of households whose memory survives in a street called Via Arringo. Nereto could administer justice, make its own laws, levy its dues and elect its podestà, and above all it did not depend on a local lord: that meant lighter taxes, and it stayed Terra Regia until feudalism was abolished in 1806. In the budget of 1541 the place is entered as a hundred and two hearths, exempt from tax.
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📅 Every year, on 11 November; 22 December brings the ringing of the Miracle bells
Nereto celebrates Saint Martin on 11 November. Every year, on 22 December, the bells ring out in memory of the Miracle; in 1998, its bicentenary was celebrated.
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