Brindisi: a busy fishing and ferry port in Apulia

The city is set on a promontory along the Adriatic coast and its fortunes have always been tied to its natural port with its characteristic branched form, which was already active in the seventh century BC. From 266 BC, the year it was conquered by the Romans, ancient Brundisium developed rapidly and thanks also to its direct link with Rome by means of the Appian way, it soon asserted itself as a leading commercial port for trade with Greece and the Orient.

In addition, it was a military port from which the Roman armies could reach overseas territories to be vanquished. In this golden age, the city was embellished with splendid buildings and monuments, but few traces have survived. Brindisi was conquered by various invaders, and in 868 it was devastated by the troops of Ludovic II.

With the Norman Conquest (1071) and the early cruscades, it regained its important role as a trade and military port. The Swabians, Angevins and Aragonese in turn added impressive structures, parts of which were later lost during the devastating earthquake that hit the city in 1456.

Like Taranto, Brindisi has little in terms of extant traces of the Roman era: there are few relics and the only exceptions are near the harbor station on the inner side of the port, a column and part of another column, dating back to the first or second century AD and perhaps indicating the point where the Appian Way ended. On the other hand, the provincial archaeological museum has plenty of findings from this period, with precious collections of sculptures, pottery, terracotta statuettes and other ancient items.

However, the artistic and architectural heritage left by the Norman-Swabian period is far more substantial, including the mighty castle erected in 1227 by Frederick II and later enlarged. Lovely examples of the Romanesque period can be seen in the circular church of San Giovanni al Sepolcro (eleventh century), the church of Santa Lucia with a splendid Basilian crypt decorated with frescoes, and the Cristo church with its elegant, pointed façade decorated with a magnificent rose window.

Other examples are the Cathedral, which was founded at the end of the eleventh century but rebuilt in the mid-eighteenth century with the prized traces of an exceptional mosaic floor from 1178 illustrating “La Chanson de Roland”, and above all, the charming church of Santa Maria del Casale, built at the end of the thirteenth century whose interior is decorated with splendid fourteenth-century frescoes.

Other monuments worthy of note are the elegant Renaissance cloister in the church of San Benedetto, founded in 1080 but rebuilt in the sixteenth century, the original Palazzo Montenegro, which is a harmonious blend of a Renaissance-style façade with the lavish Baroque used in the courtyard, and the elegant seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, whose ceiling is covered entirely in precious frescoes.

Today Brindisi is a large, busy, fishing and ferry port with many industrial activity.

When I was in Brindisi I couldn’t visit all the important buildings because Pope Benedictus should arrive in the evening and it was impossible to enter the main buildings. Lucky we could see a parade which was organized for the arrival of the Pope.

Parade

Otranto: a city on the Adriatic coast in Apulia

The town lies in an inlet on the western coast of the Otranto Channel. Ancient Hydruntum was founded by the Greeks and through-out antiquity it was a busy trading town, thanks to its position and its port. During the Middle Ages Otranto became even more important as a mercantile port, but the mid-fifteenth century marked the beginning of a long period of decline, to which the repeated, violent Turkish incursions also contributed, and its golden age drew to close.

The cathedral, founded towards the end of the eleventh century and completed halfway through the following century and completed halfway through the following century, has a majestic interior decorated with an exceptional twelfth-century mosaic floor, precious historic works including the Splendid Tree of Life, various Romanesque frescoes ad the magnificent crypt.

The Matari chapel commemorates the massacre perpetrated in 1480 by Turks, who occupied the town and shortly thereafter decapitated its bishop, the priests and many of its residents right in the church, while 800 other citizens were beheaded on the neighboring Minerva Hill. Its castle was built in a dominant position by the Arogonese over the site of an existing Swabian fortification, and it has three massive round corner towers.

Lecce: an architectural jewel in Apulia

This historic city is truly rich in artistic and cultural traditions. Known as the “Florence of the South”, it is located about ten kilometers from the Adriatic coast. It is of Messapian origins and became extremely important as early as the Imperial Age because of its busy port (San Cataldo).

However, it rose to glory chiefly after the Norman conquest, when it became the major town on the Salanto peninsula, and then during the Spanish reign, when the elegant Baroque monuments – for which even now it is rightly famous- were built. The Lecce Baroque style is extremely original and it flourished between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. It is unique in its use of local limestone, which is unusual because it turns to a lovely golden hue with the passage of time.

Traces of the Imperial Age are visible in the Roman theatre and amphitheatre built in the early second century AD. A splendid combination of Romanesque and Baroque art, the church devoted to Saints Nicholas and Cataldus, erected at the end of the twelfth century and later remodeled, is Lecce’s chief Norman monument.

The elegant Palazzo and the church of Santa Maria della Grazie, which look out onto Piazza Sant’Oronzo were built in the sixteenth century, as were the nearby castle, built over the site of the previous Norman fortification, and the lovely churches of Sant’Irene and Gesu. The Santa Croce basilica, built at the turn of the seventeenth century, presages the triumph of the Lecce Baroque. The same style was used for adjacent Palazzo del Governo, which for many years housed an interesting provincial archaeological museum, which has now been moved to the Viale Gallipoli.
The city’s most precious architectural gem is Piazza Duomo, with the Assunta cathedral and its charming bell tower, the bishop’s palace and the Palazzo del Seminario, which are the finest examples of the Lecce Baroque.

Polignano A Mare: a picturesque small town in Apulia

This picturesque little town, with its Romanesque mother church, is set high above the sea, protected by tall stone walls. Its splendid panoramic position overlooks a stretch of coast that is rich in marine grottoes, which the surf has carved from the calcareous rock over thousands of years.

Almost all of these vast, magical grottoes may be visited from the sea and in several cases, like the Piazzese grotto formed by two adjoining caves, they have even brought to light priceless material documenting the presence of human settlements in the area as earl as prehistoric times.

Poligana a Mare is also a romantic place through the beauty of the sea and many couples who are just married come to there for romantic wedding pictures. Polignano is really wonderful if you want to relax and you can even enjoy of an ice-cream in the many gelato’s which you can find there. You have a beautiful view over the coast with many boats and it is amazing to see the magnificent fluorescent blue color of the water.




Poligana is really a city which I can recommend to visit.

Trani: an immense historical architectonic patrimony in Apulia

Trani was established in the third-fourth century AD and quickly became an important seagoing and trading town, reaching its peak under Frederick II. The cathedral, one of Apulia’s most perfect examples of the Romanesque style, was founded in 1097 over an existing church and finished in the thirteenth century.

Other noteworthy monuments include the Ognissanti church, also Romanesque, and the Swabian castle (1233). Nearby, on Capo Colonna, there is the interesting abbey of Santa Maria della Colonna, built toward the end of the eleventh century.

Barletta: the port of Canosa during the Roman era in Apulia

Barletto is a city in Apulia which is located on the Adriatic coast (the Southern part of the Manfredonia Gulf). This city was already flourishing in Norman and Swabian times, and it rose to its greatest splendor under the reign of the Angevins, when its coastal position enabled it to develop wealthy trade and an important fleet.

It was the birthplace of Ettore Fieramosca, the leading figure in the famous “Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta) on 13 February 1503. Its churches, which have a wealth of valuable works of art, include the basilica of San Sepolcro, restructured in the Gothic style in the thirteenth century, and the cathedral (twelfth-fourteenth century).

Worth visiting are the Swabian Castele, the “Colosso”, a fourth-century statue depicting a Roman emperor, and the museum didictated to Giuseppi De Nittis, the great painter born in Barletta in 1846

Vieste: a popular holiday resort on the most eastern end of the Gargano peninsila in Apulia

Vieste is a well known and extremely popular holiday resort that offers visitors not only a splendid seascape and a marvelous natural backdrop, but also precious evidence of its past, set in the suggestive atmosphere of the medieval town.

This ancient town was also an Episcopal see, and at the end of the tenth century it was repeatedly attacked by the Saracen Turks who, in 1554, led by the pirate Dragut, devastated the town and decapitated many of the townsfolk on the Chianca amara (bitter rock). It was next to his stone that the splendid Romanesque cathedral was built in the eleventh century, and it now houses valuable sixteenth century works.

The castle, set in a dominant position, was built by Frederick II in 1240 but was subsequently remodeled extensively on several occasions. In addition to the long beach and lovely bays, the famous Pizzomunno monolith and the equally famous architiello (little arch), the innumerable grottoes found nearby, including the large Campana, are also worth visiting.