An Armchair Traveller's History of Apulia (18 page)

Like Ramage, most of the travellers had been brought up to read Livy, and in consequence Cannae was a place of pilgrimage for them, one of the main reasons for visiting Apulia.

Not only early travellers were fascinated by the battle. At the end of the nineteenth century, Cannae became an obsession with the chief of the German Imperial General Staff, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, who wrote a book about it – Hannibal’s tactics inspiring his plan for the next war against France. He hoped to tempt the French into invading Germany and then attack their flank with overwhelming strength through Belgium. In 1914, however, the infallible Schlieffen Plan went off at half-cock because the German commander, Field-Marshal von Moltke, lost his nerve when the Russians advanced with unexpected speed into East Prussia, and brought too many troops back to Germany.

26

Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me,

cannot be my disciple...

“Gospel of St John”

MOST MODERN VISITORS TO APULIA, seduced by the blue of the Adriatic, confine themselves to the beautiful cities of the coast or the Baroque splendour of Lecce. If they bother to adventure inland into the Murge, it is usually to inspect such showpieces as Ruvo or Alberobello, or to wander over the battlefield of Cannae. They miss a lot that is well worth seeing.

Noicattaro is among the Murge’s quieter little cities, and at first sight does not look very interesting, save for a good Romanesque
chiesa madre
from the thirteenth century. Formerly its name was Noja, only becoming Noicattaro in 1863. All that Pacichelli could find to say about the city was that it was “the seat of the Duchy of Noja of the Lords Carafa, set amid fertile fields”. And full of “commodious houses, palaces and convents.”

The
abate
does not mention an incident that occurred some years before his visit. In 1676 a servant of the Count of Conversano was caught poaching in the forest which then surrounded the city and resisted arrest so violently that the Duke of Noja sent him home minus ears and nose. Shortly after, Count Giulio Acquaviva came to Noja at dead of night with 300 armed men, broke into the ducal
palazzo
, dragged the duke out of bed, bound him and threatened to amputate his features in the same way. Only the tears of his duchess and of his mother the dowager saved the Lord Carafa.

As has been seen, there was a bloodthirsty streak in this branch of the Carafa family who were also Dukes of Andria, and the unfortunate citizens had to put up with some occasionally savage misrule. Adjoining the main piazza at Noicattaro are the battered remnants of what was once the Carafa’s palace, where a heartfelt inscription on a worn tablet hails “the breaking of the feudal yoke.”

In November 1815 bubonic plague broke out at Noja, probably imported from Albania. For a month the citizens refused to believe it. Then the entire city was put into quarantine for a year, three trenches being dug around the walls and cannon mounted at the gates, to prevent anybody leaving; if a man tried to jump over the trenches, he was shot by the guard of the
cordon sanitaire
(quarantine barrier). Three bored soldiers who used a pack of cards thrown to them by someone inside the city went in front of a firing squad. The carnival became a Dance of Death, when out of fifty celebrating the days before Ash Wednesday forty-five were dead within a week. No less than two thirds of the population died of the plague, the last in June 1816.

When Keppel Craven came two years later, he found a ghost town: “The whole was untenanted, the habitations having been unroofed at the time that the general purification took place; this consisted in repeatedly burning all suspected clothes, goods and furniture, and in renewed ablutions and fumigations, followed by a scraping of the walls and universal white-washing.” The
chiesa madre
was white-washed too, when the first victims were buried there in a communal tomb inscribed:

Sepolcro di Appestati

Pena di morte a chi osa aprirlo

(Tomb of the plague-stricken

Who dares open does so on pain of death)

Most, however, were buried in a plague-pit next to the Augus-tinian priory on the edge of the city, which had been converted into a plague-hospital.

The drama of Maundy Thursday at Noicattaro rivals anything that takes place in Italy during Holy Week. After a white-hooded confraternity, a doleful band and finally the
sindaco
(mayor) in tri-coloured sash have passed, there seems little point in staying. Then, dimly lit by small red lamps on every balcony, people are seen to be gazing intently at something outside one of the lesser churches. Suddenly a huge cross rises from the ground, borne by a figure in black, shrouded from hooded head to ankles, hands black-gloved, feet bare; an iron chain with links an inch thick is tied to one ankle.

In the dusk, carrying the great cross, the faceless penitent staggers down the road, preceded by boys cracking wooden rattles and followed by a growing crowd. There is no sound other than rattles and dragging chain. The figure falls heavily three times, in memory of Christ’s Passion. It leaves the cross at the main door of the
chiesa madre
, to kneel at the high altar; a dull, repeated thudding is heard, the penitent scourging itself with the chain. Rising from its knees, it goes out into the moonlight to pick up the cross (which weighs 60 kgs) and slowly continues its painful way down the road to the church of the Carmine. Again, it falls heavily three times. The silent crowd follows. Now and then, someone runs forward to touch the cross. A further scourging takes place before the high altar of the Carmine, above which hangs a text:

AS THE PELICAN IN THE DESERT WOUNDS HERSELF AND DIES SO THAT HER BROOD MAY ENDURE AND LIVE, SO CHRIST GAVE HIS BODY AND BLOOD FOR OUR SALVATION THAT WE MIGHT LIVE.

The rapt crowd has entered the church in the penitent’s wake, watching mutely. Suddenly, a second figure in black appears, crawling up the aisle on its knees. On reaching the altar, it gives itself another thirty blows with its chain. Some of the community of brown-habited Carmelite friars, sitting mummified in the crypt below, have heard similar blows every Lent for over two hundred years.

On that Maundy Thursday night you will see at least a dozen other hooded figures in black carrying huge crosses to every church in Noicattaro. Despite bleeding feet they will go on doing so until dawn breaks. They are the confraternity of the
Addolorato
, men and women whose identities are known only to the confraternity’s chaplain, doing penance not just for their sins but for those of the entire community.

On Good Friday, in almost every Apulian city a black-robed statue of the Madonna Dolorosa, a silver dagger piercing her heart, is borne through the streets, escorted by a mournful town band, hooded confraternities and hundreds of women in black. At Molfetta a nineteenth century Neapolitan statue of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane is carried on the shoulders of the oldest confraternity in Apulia, the
Arciconfraternità di Santo Stefano
; at His feet lies a reliquary containing a fragment of the True Cross. At San Marco in Lamis the sorrowful Madonna is preceded by
fracchie
, huge wooden cones that are drawn at the head of the procession and then set on fire.

On Easter Sunday, together with a life-sized statue of the Risen Christ, a doll representing Lent is paraded in some places. Stuffed with fireworks, the doll is thrown onto a flaming bonfire while the crowd cheers. These ancient processions derive from the old pagan spring festivals but the form they take is a legacy of Spanish rule, and Apulians from all walks of life take part in them.

27

The word is not rendered by ‘farm house’, which gives but an

inadequate idea of the masseria.

Charles Macfarlane, “The Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers”

ON THE MURGE you never see a house of any antiquity outside the cities, apart from the odd castle or
masseria
. One or two of the
masserie
have been converted into small hotels whose guests wrongly assume that they were manor houses, but in reality the nobles who owned them preferred to inhabit a castle or a
palazzo
in the local city, rarely visiting the
masseria
and then merely to hunt. They were not so much farmhouses as fortified depots for agricultural produce that at certain times of the year – lambing, sowing, reaping, pruning, fruit-picking, wine-making, etc – took on the role of villages. Strongholds with battlements and cannon, defended by armed guards, they sheltered communities of farm workers who otherwise lived in the cities.

Built as protection against slave-raiders or brigands, the surviving
masserie
(which are not confined to the Murge) generally date from between the sixteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, although their origin is far older. Sometimes they have rueful names, for example
Spina
,
Petrose
,
Scaserba
,
Campi Distrutti
or
della Femina Morta
, that hint at the harsh existence of the old Apulian countryside. Most are deserted, crumbling into ruin; bleak monuments to a way of life that ended only a little over seventy years ago and is still remembered by a handful of very aged men and women. A few have been modernised, serving as ordinary farm houses.

The construction of
masserie
all over Apulia from the late Middle Ages onward reflected not just a need to protect peasants but the increasing importance of olive farming, each
masseria
being equipped with a press and countless oil jars. A feature of Apulian life since the Messapian period, olive trees had begun to be grown commercially during the early thirteenth century, at first by the monasteries. Then the feudal lords copied the monks, so that eventually every big estate had its
masseria
and olive groves.

Since wine was another staple of Apulian agriculture, there were vineyards as well as olive groves near every
masseria
, which always contained a wine-press. In some places the
masserie
stood among seemingly endless almond groves while those around Conversano, Monopoli and Putignano were encircled by no less beautiful cherry orchards. Cherries were preserved in grappa as early as the eighteenth century. With fewer olives and vines,
masserie
on the otherwise tree-less sheep runs of the Alta Murgia or the northern Tavoliere specialised in cheese and butter, employing professional dairy men to process the ewes’ milk.

Charles Macfarlane, who came to Apulia in 1817 and knew it better than any other early traveller save Pacichelli, has an unusually helpful description. “The
masserie
in Apulia and the provinces of Bari, Òtranto and Tàranto, are all built on the same plan”, he tells us:

A square wall of enclosure, sufficiently high and solid, generally surrounds the dwelling-house, built against one side, and containing three or four large habitable rooms, and sometimes a small chapel. The vast stables, granaries, and out-houses, within the walls, form a right-angle with this dwelling-house, but without touching it. In the midst of the enclosure, at some distance from the surrounding walls, rises a round or square tower of two storeys, standing quite alone. The ascent to the upper storey is either by stone steps, inserted in the tower, or by a drawbridge, or by a ladder easily drawn up into the tower.

General Sir Richard Church was also in Apulia in 1817, hunting down brigands. He too describes a
masseria
, “a very good specimen of its class”, when prepared for a sudden attack by horse-men, the Masseria del Duca:

Its thick walls dated from the middle ages, and were loopholed and protected by great solid gates and an avenue of trees, which was now effectually blocked up by carts with the wheels taken off, and logs and tree-trunks laid crosswise. At one corner of the enclosure rose a square tower, from the top of which you might overlook the great plain, dotted with white towns and villages, patched with brown leafless vineyards, green meads, silver-grey olive-orchards, and bounded by the shining sea.

The general recalled what he found here, “in a very large room, comfortably furnished after the manner of these Apulian
masserie
”, obviously, the quarters of the
massaro
, the steward who ran the estate for its absentee landowner.’ At this date, few proprietors ever dared to visit such a dangerous countryside, not even for the hunting.

Great chests, some for holding meal, some for holding clothes and linen, a heavy oaken table, some stools and benches, were on the floor; jars of olives, figs and raisins, stood upon a shelf against the smoke-dried wall; strings of onions, sausages, and dried fish dangled from the rafters. Cheeses were there too, and huge jars of olive-oil, and half-a-dozen demi-johns (great stone bottles), stoppered with oiled cotton, and containing the wine of the country, stood under the table.