An Armchair Traveller's History of Apulia (40 page)

Rulers of Apulia from Norman Times

The Hautevilles

Tancred had been illegitimate and the Emperor Henry VI claimed the throne as husband of the rightful heir Constance, daughter of Roger II, deposing and murdering Tancred’s son, the infant William III.

The Hohenstaufen

The Pope offered the Kingdom of Sicily to Charles of Anjou (bro-ther of Louis IX of France) who defeated and killed Manfred, taking his throne. In 1282 the Sicilians rose against him in the Sicilian Vespers, choosing as their king Pedro III of Aragon who had married Manfred’s daughter. There were two kingdoms of Sicily – that on the mainland (including Apulia) ruled from Naples and that on the island ruled from Palermo.

The Angevin Kings

In 1442 Alfonso King of Aragon and Sicily conquered Naples from Réné of Anjou (father-in-law of Henry VI of England) and styled himself ‘King of the Two Sicilies’. He left Naples to his bastard son Ferrante, his descendants ruling it until the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century.

The Aragonese Kings

In 1501 Federigo was deposed by his cousin King Ferdinand of Spain and for over 200 years the kingdom was governed by Spanish viceroys. In 1713 it passed to the Emperor Charles VI, being governed by Austrian viceroys. In 1738 Charles of Bourbon (technically Charles VII but generally called Charles III) drove out the Austrians, re-established the Two Sicilies as an independent monarchy and founded the ‘Borbone’ dynasty. On becoming King of Spain he abdicated in favour of his third son, Ferdinand IV, who in 1816 become known as Ferdinand I to mark the administrative reunion of the Two Sicilies.

The Borbone Kings

Since 1860 the kingdom of the Two Sicilies has been part of united Italy (although the Holy See recognised its exiled kings until 1902).

Alberobello

One of the most visited towns in Apulia, it is unique in that the old centre is comprised entirely of trulli. The trullo church of Sant’Antonio was built in the twentieth century.

Altamura

In 1999 over 3000 footprints of five types of dinosaur were discovered in the area, the largest collection in Europe. The area was widely inhabited since Neolithic times but the discovery in 1993 of
Altamura Man
, the only complete fossilised skeleton from the Middle Lower Paleolithic era (200,000 BC), suggests its occupation by man started much earlier. (There is a conducted tour to this and the
Pulo di Altamura
– an impressive karst sink-hole north of the city). The city was one of the most important Peucetian settlements from at least the fifth century BC, surrounded by 6 metre high walls which ran for 4 kms. With the advent of the Via Traiana and the decline of the Via Appia it lost its importance. Destroyed by the Saracens who came from Metaponto up the Bradano valley it remained uninhabited until 1230 when Frederick II founded the modern town on the site of the old acropolis. The previous inhabitants had fled to the
gravine
– as they were to do again – and there are several rupestrian churches with traces of frescoes. The
cathedral
, one of the four palatine basilicas of Puglia, was founded by Frederick II in 1232 but considerably altered after the earthquake of 1316; the late fourteenth century portal with its bas relief of the Annunciation is particularly fine, as is the rose window from the thirteeth century.

Andria

Frederick II’s most loved city although now, with a population of 100,000, one of the largest in Apulia is still an attractive town and a good base from which to explore the cathedral cities of Trani, Barletta, Giovinazzo and Bisceglie. It is also the nearest town to the unmissable
Castel del Monte
.

The first inhabitants of the area lived in the grottoes but in the Iron Age they built round houses very similar to the
trulli
, many of which have been discovered between Andria and Castel del Monte Apulo from 1000 BC. it became a Peucetian settlement from the seventh century and then the Greek Netium. The inhabitants of Cannae fled here after the battle and destruction of their village in 216 BC. Under the Romans the town became a station on the Via Traiana. In 44 AD, on their way to Rome, St Peter and St Andrew evangelised the city which became a See in about 492. Basilian monks, fleeing from the iconoclast Byzantine emperors, settled in the surrounding grottoes and created their churches –
Santa Croce
still has frescoes. From 1064, under the Normans, the town was walled and fortified. The Emperor Frederick II regarded it as one of his most loyal cities and two of his wives had mausolea, destroyed by Charles of Anjou, in the cathedral crypt, the former seventh century Church of San Pietro. The cathedral also contains relics of San Riccardo and a thorn from Christ’s crown of thorns. Under the Angevines it became a duchy and was given in fee to Charles II’s daughter Beatrice on her marriage to Bertrando Del Balzo. Given to Gonsalvo de Cordoba in 1507 by the Spanish King Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1552 it was sold by his nephew to the Carafa family to whom it belonged until 1806. Fabrizio Carafa built the basilica of
Santa Maria dei Miracoli
just outside the city. Andria was the birthplace of the famous eighteenth century
castrato
Farinelli, but he does not seem to have performed publicly in his native city after he was castrated on the suggestion of his brother and sent to Naples to study singing.

Bari

Bari is now a thriving town and a very interesting place to visit for a couple of days. In the new town the
Petruzzelli Theatre
has been restored and is staging world class operas and nearby Via Sparano and the streets off it are full of internationally renowned shops. But the real reason to go to the city is to visit
Old Bari
, a tangle of very narrow streets opening out into squares containing the wonderful
Romanesque Cathedral of San Sabino
, the
Basilica di San Nicola
and the castle built by Fredrick II.

Barletta

Inhabited from at least the fourth century BC it was the port for Canosa in Roman times. The Lombard invasion in the sixth century AD caused the inhabitants of Canosa to seek refuge in Barletta, as did the Norman Robert Guiscard’s sack of Cannae. The Normans built the church of
San Sepolcro
in front of which stands the statue of
Eraclio/Are
. The church has been heavily restored after falling out of use in the nineteenth century. Following the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land, the Archbishop of Nazareth took refuge in Barletta and the diocesan offices moved permanently there in 1327. Under the Anjou dynasty the city enjoyed its most prosperous period; the Romanesque
cathedral
was extended to the east in Gothic style by Pierre d’Angicourt, who also built the cathedral at Lucera and restored the castle at Canosa. But in 1456 an earthquake caused extensive damage. The Aragonese rebuilt the Norman castle to withstand Turkish bombardment but it was badly damaged by the Austrians in the First World War; it has been re-stored and is one of the most impressive in Puglia. From the baroque period very few palazzi of note have survived, one of which – the
Palazzo della Marra
– now houses the
Pinecoteca De Nittis
. An interesting modern monument is the
Ossario Commemorativo dei Caduti Slavi
– memorial and ossuary for the Yugoslavian partisans who, wounded in the Balkans during the war and brought across the Adriatic to hospitals in Puglia, died of their wounds.