An Armchair Traveller's History of Apulia

by Seward, Desmond

  Lecce

  Undoubtedly the most beautiful city in Apulia, which saw its architectural zenith in the seventeenth century when many of the monasteries, churches and palaces were built. Founded by Messapians who successfully repelled all advances from Tàranto it became the Roman Lupiae. During the reign of Hadrian the centre was moved three kilometres to the northeast and took the name Litium. The Via Traiana was extended to Lecce and its port at present day San Cataldo became the busiest in the Salento after Brìndisi while Lecce itself, by now with a theatre and amphitheatre, became the most important town. During the Dark Ages it was sacked by Totila but recovered for the Byzantines in 549 but did not flourish until the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century. The Normans built the Chiesa dei Santi Niccolò e Cataldo which, although considerably altered in the Baroque period, still retains its original portal. From the end of the fifteenth century during the reign of Ferrante d’Aragona it had commercial dealings with Florence, Venice, Genoa, Greece and Albania becoming one of the richest and most cultured cities of the Italian peninsula. Owing to Turkish incursions new walls and a castle were built under Charles V. From 1630 under Spanish rule a building frenzy created numerous religious institutions and palaces. However in 1656 the plague killed thousands of the inhabitants, only being brought to a halt by the intercession of Sant’ Oronzo who, from this time, became the city’s patron saint. The most outstanding ecclesiastical buildings are Santa Croce and the adjacent Palazzo dei Celestini, the Cathedral, Sant’Irene dei Teatini, Basilica di San Giovanni Battista al Rosario, Chiesa del Carmine, Chiesa di San Matteo and the Cloister of the Dominicans. Other interesting edifices are the gates of the city – Porta Napoli, Porta Rudiae and Porta San Biagio and the towers – the moated Belloluogo Tower where Maria d’Enghien spent the last years of her life and in which is a tiny chapel with frescoes of the life of Mary Magdalene, and the Torre del Parco where Maria D’Enghien’s son, Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo, kept his bears. The latter is now an hotel.

  Lucera

  According to Strabo Lucera was founded by Diomede King of Etolia who after the fall of Troy fled to Apulia and established himself and his followers nearby. In 314 BC it became an autonomous Roman colony. The amphitheatre was built in honour of Octavian who visited it on several occasions to watch fights between gladiators and wild beasts. During the first century AD one of the first Christian communities in Europe was founded, with St Peter, on his way to Rome, baptising them in the River Vulgano. The first bishop, Basso, was martyred under Trajan in 118. The Byzantine emperor Constans II sacked the Lombard city in 663 but in 743 the Lombards returned and rebuilt the cathedral. The Emperor Frederick II built the castle which was much enlarged by Charles I of Anjou. After the destruction of the city by Charles II of Anjou in 1300 he rebuilt it and renamed it “Civita Sancte Marie”. The demolished mosque became the Cathedral of the Assumption. Robert of Anjou re-populated it with colonists from Provence and the Pope sent the Croatian bishop Agostino Kazotic to convert the area. In 1323 the bishop was mortally wounded by a Muslim.

  Manduria

  An important Messapian city which fended off various attacks from Tàranto thanks to the three defensive walls encircling the city. The Spartan king Archidamus III lost his life beneath these walls in 338 BC. Manduria sided with Hannibal and for this thou-sands of its citizens were sold into slavery when the Romans took the city. After its destruction by the Saracens it remained uninhabited until it was re-founded in the thirteenth century but occupied only a small portion of the Messapian site. During the Middle Ages Manduria had an important Jewish community living in the Ghetto. Having been owned by various families it ended up in 1719 in the possession of the Imperiali di Francavilla, who held it until 1799, and built the fine Palazzo Imperiali. In the northeast of the city lies the Archeological Park of the Messapian Walls where the largest Messapian necropolis ever found has been excavated amounting to about 2500 tombs, as well as segments of the three defensive walls surrounding the ancient city. In the same area are Pliny’s Fountain and the church of San Pietro Mandurino – the latter founded in the eighth century by adapting a Messapian chamber tomb.

  Manfredonia

  Siponto was a Daunian settlement then a flourishing Greek port which, having been defeated by first the Samnites and then in 335 BC by Alexander I, King of Epirus, became in 189 BC a Roman colony. It was a bishop’s See as early as 465 and probably had been converted to Christianity following St Peter’s sojourn in Apulia on his way to Rome. The Byzantine Emperor Constans destroyed it in the process of returning the region to the Empire. It was occupied by the Saracens for several years in the ninth century. An earthquake and possibly a tsunami destroyed it in 1255 and Manfred established his new city of Manfredonia two kilometres away from the malarial swamps which had formed round the old site. Siponto is now a holiday resort but the Romanesque churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, whose Byzantine icon of the Virgin is now in the cathedral of Manfredonia, and San Leonardo are well worth visiting. In Manfredonia itself the Angevins rebuilt the castle and built the cathedral. During the fourteenth century the port became the most important in the Capitanata but by the fifteenth century the fortifications had to be strengthened owing to the Turkish threat. These were of no avail as in 1620 the Ottoman Ali Pasha with fifty-six galleys attacked Manfredonia and destroyed the medieval city. The only buildings that remained were the church of St Mark, the castle and the walls. The cathedral was rebuilt from 1624.

  Martina Franca

  Founded by fugitives from Tàranto escaping the Saracens it was recognised as a city in the fourteenth century. Martina Franca has a very attractive old part filled with baroque palaces and churches; the town hall with murals by Carella (at the moment being restored) is well worth seeing, as is the Church of San Martino with its simple Nativity by Stefano di Putignano.

  Massafra

  The most northern of Messapian centres, it came under Greece and then it is thought was given to North African fugitives fleeing from the Vandals. They sought help from the archbishop of Tàranto, who gave them land between the two ravines where they lived in the grottoes. The first documentary evidence is from the tenth century when the Lombards appointed a local administrator.

  Under the Normans it was given to Robert Guiscard’s nephew Richard the Seneshal, who restored the castle. The Angevins took back Massafra from Oddone di Soliac in 1296 and joined it with the Principality of Tàranto. In the fifteenth century it became a free city and a centre for horse breeding. Later it again became a fief and was given to the Pappacoda family from Naples then to the Imperiali who owned it from 1661 until 1778 and planted olives, vines and fruit trees on their land, modernised the castle and built the clock tower. Apart from the castle and the Convento di San Benedetto there is little of note in the upper town – the ravines are the reason to visit Massafra. The churches which still have frescoes are Chiesa di Santa Lucia; Chiesa della Candelora; Chiesa della Madonna della Buona Nuova (part of the Chiesa della Santa Maria della Scala); Chiesa di Sant’ Antonio Abate; Chiesa di San Simine in Pantaleo; Chiesa di San Simeone a Famosa and Chiesa della Santa Marina.

  Matera (now in Basilicata)

  Like all the cities which grew up round ravines Matera was inhabited in the Neolithic era. The city itself probably has Greek origins, settled by the inhabitants of Metaponto fleeing from Hannibal. It suffered the usual depredations from Goths, Lombards and Saracens and was sacked by the troops of Emperor Louis II while they were trying to exterminate the latter. At the beginning of the eighth century it saw the emigration of basilian monks from the Eastern Empire who established themselves in the caves of the ravines and carved out churches in the Sassi. From 1043, with the arrival of the Normans, the city enjoyed a long period of stability during which Frederick II founded the cathedral which was completed in 1270. As well as the rupestrian churches, two others are worthy of note – the Chiesa del Purgatorio and the Convento di Sant’Agostino. The most important churches of the Sassi are Santa Lucia a
lle Malve, Convicinio di Sant’ Antonio, Santa Maria di Idris, Madonna delle Virtù, San Pietro Barisano and Santa Maria della Valle. Further afield the Cripta del Peccato Originale has Lombard frescoes.

  Melfi (now in Basilicata)

  The first record of Melfi comes in the eleventh century when Basil Boiannes was catapan but the site was occupied in at least the Bronze Age. With the Roman conquest of the area it seems the inhabitants were sent to the new colony of Venusia. Its period of greatness came with the Normans who made it their headquarters in the conquest of Puglia. Robert Guiscard married Sichelgaita of Salerno in Melfi. In 1059 Pope Nicholas II at the First Council of Melfi made Robert Duke of Puglia and Calabria and a vassal of the Holy See. Frederick II spent a great deal of time in Melfi owing to the good hunting in the area. His Constitutions were set out here and in 1241 he imprisoned two cardinals and numerous French and German bishops who had attended a Council called by the Pope with the object of deposing him. The Angevines greatly enlarged the castle to control the surrounding population who were supporters of the Hohenstaufen and loathed the French.

  In 1531 the Aragonese King Carlos V who was short of money after the Thirty Years’ War removed the Caracciolo family from the Principality of Melfi and sold Melfi to the Genoese Andria Doria for 25,000 ducats. It then went into steady decline, not helped by earthquakes – the last in 1930 destroying much of the city – and, after the Unification of Italy, the presence of brigands including the notorious Carmine Donatello Crocco. The castle now houses the archeological museum, and the Cathedral and the eighteenth century Bishop’s Palace have been restored. The walls which in Norman times were four kilometres in circumference have mostly been destroyed by earthquakes but small stretches remain as well as the Venosa Gate. Outside the city are two rupestrian churches with frescoes – Santa Margherita and Santa Lucia; the former is particularly interesting as one of the frescoes shows Frederick II holding a hawk with his wife, Isabella of England, and his son Corrado on his right, and on his left three skeletons. An interesting church historically is the Chiesa di Santa Maria ad Nives which was built in 1570 by the Albanian Giorgino Lapazzaia. It still retains the arbëreshë rite which is basically Greek Orthodox and serves a community who speak a dialect of Albanian going back to the sixteenth century. Melfi is a pleasant place with lovely views of Monte Vulture.

  Monopoli

  The area immediately around has been inhabited for the last 80,000 years but the city itself was founded by the Messapians in about 500 BC. They walled the city and built a fortress. In the Roman era the port was used primarily for military purposes. After Gothic and Saracen raids the people of Egnathia fled to Monopoli which was then taken by the Byzantines. In 1041 the inhabitants called in the Normans and resisted all efforts by the Byzantine general George Maniaces to retake it; in retribution he laid waste to all the surrounding territory. The medieval city was laid out by the Normans on the peninsula between the two natural harbours. It was during their rule that the famous icon of the Madonna della Madia (now in the cathedral) is alleged to have arrived on a raft with a consignment of wooden beams required for the roof of the new church. This church had been superimposed on an earlier one, which in its turn had been erected on the site of a pagan temple. In 1742 it was decided to enlarge the building, which had been already altered in the sixteenth century, and the present cathedral was built – a fine example of late eighteenth century Baroque. In a room up a flight of stairs from the vestry is a fascinating collection of ex-voto paintings. There are several rupestrian churches in and around the city including the crypt of Chiesa di Santa Maria Amalfitana, Madonna del Soccorso and San Leonardo. During the long minority of Frederick II the barons in Puglia rebelled but Monopoli remained loyal to the emperor. The walls were damaged but re-stored and strengthened by Frederick when he was older, thanks to which the city was never attacked by the Turks. They also withstood a three month siege by the Spaniard Alfonso d’Avalos during the struggle for Puglia between the Venetians and the Spanish in 1529. After the armistice Monopoli belonged to Charles V. The castle, superimposed on the Messapian walls and the Roman gate to the port, was built in the sixteenth century under the hated Spanish rule. The city went into a decline from this period and in July 1647 during a popular rising the governor was lynched, followed by reprisals by troops stationed at Bari.

  Monte Sant’ Angelo

  Under the Lombards the city grew up around the Sanctuary of St Michael (still a place of pilgrimage), and was enlarged by the Normans who founded the Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore, and the Tomba di Rotari – in reality a baptistery. Charles of Anjou erected the building now housing the sanctuary and the elegant campanile over the grotto. The castle was built by Orso, bishop of Benevento in the ninth century but he could not prevent the sack of the city by the Saracens in 871. Normans, Hohenstaufen, Angevins and the Aragonese enlarged and strengthened it to withstand contemporary warfare.

  Mottola

  Although it was inhabited in the Bronze Age and remains of Greek walls have been discovered round the centre there is no documentary evidence for its existence until the beginning of the eleventh century when the catapan Basil Boioannes founded a castle here against the incursions of the Saracens. Under the Normans who attempted to stamp out the Greek rite, rupestrian churches were made in the ravines of Petruscio and Casalrotto by followers of the rite. These include San Nicola, Sant’Angelo, San Gregorio and Santa Margherita, all with frescoes – those of San Nicola some of the best in Apulia. During the Second World War Polish soldiers hid from the Germans in the Villagio ipogeo di Petruscio, an amazing settlement of underground dwellings and churches dating from early times. In 1653 the fee of Mottola was sold to Francesco Caracciolo VII, Duke of Martina Franca, who retained it until the end of feudalism in 1806.

  Nardò

  One of the most attractive and largest cities in the Salento, it is near the Ionian coast with the interesting series of watchtowers (six of which are in the parish) built by Charles V to defend Puglia from the Muslim pirates of North Africa and the Balkans. A Messapian settlement from the tenth century, it was frequently at war with Tàranto but joined them in the fight with Pyrrhus against Rome and was severely punished by the victorious Romans after the Social Wars. Under Augustus, the city, which had been abandoned for decades, was reinstated as Neritum; new roads were built to link it with the Via Appia and it flourished until the arrival of the Goths. Taken by the Byzantines and Lombards it became a haven in the ninth century for basilian monks who built the Abbazia di Santa Maria di Nerito, now the very much altered cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. After the city was conquered by the Normans in 1058 the abbey was handed to the Benedictines. Nardò was loyal to Frederick II in his battle with the Papacy, and to Manfred after his father’s death. The papal troops took the city but Manfred recaptured it with a force of Saracen mercenaries and returned it to his loyal vassal, Tommaso Gentile. It was then at-tacked by cities loyal to the Pope – Brìndisi, Mesagne and Òtranto – whereupon Manfred besieged and destroyed Brìndisi. Nardò was once again given back to Tommaso Gentile in 1255 but he died the following year, to be succeeded by his son. The next feudatory was Luigi Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, who governed well and created a renowned School of Studies, but he rebelled against Giovanna II and was deposed in favour of the Del Balzo Orsini. On the death of Giovanni Antonio in 1463 Nardò returned to the Crown but, after the Ottoman attacks in 1480 at Tàranto, Òtranto and Nardò, in 1497 the Aragonese King Federico I sold the city to the Acquaviva Counts of Conversano for 11,000 ducats. The new owners built the fine Baroque palaces, including the beautiful Palazzo del Tribunale, and the Guglia in the Piazza Salandra – and it remained in the family until the end of feudalism in 1806.

  Ostuni

  The site was inhabited since the Stone Age, became a town under the Messapians and was destroyed by Hannibal. Re-built by the Greeks it suffered the usual depredations of Goths and Saracens before being once more rebuilt under the Byzantines who made it
a diocese. From 1294 to 1463 it was part of the Principality of Tàranto and from 1507 passed first to Isabella Sforza, Duchess of Bari and then to her daughter Bona. In 1639 it was sold by the Spanish King Phillip IV to the merchant family of Zevallos who taxed the inhabitants harshly and caused a decline in the population. Known as the White City on account of its whitewashed houses (to which it owed its immunity from the plagues of the seventeenth century) it revived under the Bourbons and expanded onto the neighbouring hills. The main sights of the old town are the fifteenth century Cathedral, the Bishop’s palace, the Guglia di Sant’Oronzo, Chiesa di San Vito Martire, and in the newer town the Chiesa dell’Annunziata, but there are also numerous palazzi in the old town making it one of the most attractive in Apulia. Outside the town is the church of Santa Maria la Nova, built in 1561 above a rupestrian church with traces of frescoes.

  Òtranto

  Òtranto was a town of Tarentine Greek origin which became a Roman municipium and an important port of embarkation for the east. The Via Traiana was extended to the city after the temprorary demise of Brìndisi. It remained part of the Byzantine empire – during which the Church of San Pietro was built – until it was among the last cities of Apulia to surrender to Robert Guiscard at the end of 1070. The cathedral was founded in 1080 and finished in the twelfth century, when the marvellous mosaic floor was laid. In the Middle Ages there was a large population of Jews who had a school there but these were expelled by the Aragonese. Òtranto was occupied from 12th August 1480 until 18th September 1481 by the Turks. After it was recovered by Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, the walls were strengthened and the castle rebuilt but it still suffered from attacks by Venetians and Turks, including being briefly taken by the notorious corsair Barbarossa. Today Òtranto is a popular place for day trippers but in the evening or early morning it is one of the most fascinating and attractive cities in the Salento.