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 mon
uments 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.



























