RAMLEH. - City in Palestine, southeast of Jaffa. According to Arab writers, the founding of the city is attributed to the Umayyad caliph Sulayman (716), who intended to create an Arab capital of Palestine. Its inhabitants were predominantly Muslims, but also Jews and Christians. The minaret built at that time was completed with the columns that the Christians had prepared for their church. From this period a vaulted cistern remains, popularly called that of St. Helena.

In the 12th century the Crusaders took the city for Arimathea (v.) and attributed great antiquity to it. On the ruins of an ancient building they erected the great basilica

(phot. Laboratorio Etnografico Terra Santa)
RAMLEH - View.

of St. John, excellently preserved to this day, although converted into a mosque. Since R. was an important point on the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, which could not be traveled in a single day, all the more so because pilgrims also wished to visit nearby Lydda (v.), the Franciscans already in 1395 built a hospice there, which remained in operation until our own times. It may be said that almost all pilgrims of the Holy Land (v. PELLEGRINAGGIO) took lodging there. In 1799 Napoleon, engaged in the siege of Jaffa, established his headquarters there, and after his departure the Turks took revenge by destroying the building. R. has its watchtower, called "of the 40," built in 1318. The city in 1948 passed to the State of Israel, and of its current 13 thousand inhabitants the great majority is Jewish.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, London 1890, pp. 303-308; E. Castellani, Catalogo dei firmani concernenti le proprietà della Custodia di Terra Santa, Jerusalem 1922, p. 166 (index); C. Enlat, Les monuments des Croisés, II, Paris 1928, pp. 329-35; B. Bagatti, Il Museo della Flagellazione, Jerusalem 1939, nos. 114-16; P. Hitti, History of the Arabs, London 1943, p. 220; Status descriptivus Custodiae Terrae Sanctae, Jerusalem 1951, pp. 104-107.

Bellarmino Bagatti

@incollection{ec10_ramleh, author = {Bagatti, Bellarmino}, title = {Ramleh}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {513--514}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ramleh} }

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