Archeology, casket of the memory The archeological wealth represents one of the most
important elements of historic interest of this land wholly to discover.
The geographic position and the favorable climatic conditions
made this part of Puglia and ideal place for the human
settlement even from the most remote ancient times.
Among sea, hills and ancient suburbs there is an extraordinary
archeological way, a precious casket that sometimes comes out,
revealing to the visitor's astonished look and to the scholar's
careful interest fragments or more consistent signs, dumb and
yet eloquent of a millenary history.
In the land of Brindisi
every town looks after an archeological site, finds scattered
among the olive groves leaning to the ancient farms, hidden
under the floors of the churches, squares and places that
methodical excavations or, in some cases, fortuitous finding
bring back to light.
Fasano Egnazia
A long-winded documentation that in the luckiest cases
concentrates on real archeological parks. In Fasano, on a coast
"deeply tormented by very limpid waters" there is the
archeological site of Egnatia, ancient "messapica" town and then
roman "municipium" celebrated by the immortal verses of Orazio.
The walls, the forum, the structures of the amphitheatre, the
residences, the "basiliche", the ruins of the Traiana Way
testify and tell the history of the ancient settlement that,
among different events, survives until the X century. Attached
to the park, the national
archeological museum contains and looks after the precious
finds: sculptures, funeral equipments, coins, jewels and in
particular the pottery here produced and called "gnathia".
The archeological itinerary in the land of Brindisi has to stop
in Ostuni where there is a fascinating page of history that goes
back to about 25.000 years ago. On the hill of the white city,
there is the cave of the sanctuary of S. Maria di Agnano,
ancient place of worship at first pagan and then Christian. A
ravine of extraordinary suggestion where nature and holiness
melt and where it has been discovered the burial place of a
young lady on the point of giving birth to her child. Today
Delia - so it was called the most ancient sweet mother of the
world, can be admired in the museum
of the pre-classic civilizations of the southern "Murgia",
located in an ancient monastery in the historic center.
This archeological adventure in the land of Brindisi is rich of
promises for the future: in Mesagne the archeological museum "Granafei"
has about 2.500 finds of the "messapica" era belonging from the
town center and from the areas of Muro Tenente and Muro Maurizio,
where excavation sites are still in progress. Always, in Mesagne,
in the quarter of Malvindi, near the farm bearing the same name,
there are the finds of a thermal plant of Roman age.
In Villa Castelli the excavation sites of Pietra Pertosa testify
the presence of a vital Neolitic settlement until the end of the
XVII century: awaiting the end of the excavation sites the most
significant finds are exhibited at the entrance of the ducal
palace.
The "Messapi", this people that look part in the history of the
land of Brindisi, showed its presence in Valesio, in the
territory of Torchiarolo, where, despite the abuses of time and
vandals, are still visible their traces in the Messapican town
bearing the same name, which later became roman with the name of
Baletium. Other particularly important signs of the "messapica"
presence are found also in Oria and Ceglie Messapica. Fortified
circles of walls, inscriptions, graves attest the age of a land
by archeological findings that can be seen here and there;
another interesting surprise in a land that doesn't love to show
its treasures but prefers to give back to the visitor the
ancient taste of discovery.
Protector of the historic memory of the province is the archeological
provincial museum "F.Ribezzo"
in Brindisi, where five interesting ways are suggested: the
epigraphic and statuary section; the antiquarian section; the
prehistoric section; the numismatic section and the section
dedicated to the sculptures, that may be dated between the IV
century A.C. and the III century D.C., found some years ago in
the underwater excavation of Punta del Serrone.
The archeological documentation enjoyable from the administrative
center is not only in the museum; in fact the town has in its
built-up area, in addition to isolated finds of great interest
such as the end columns of the Appian Way, the site of S. Pietro
degli Schiavoni: a quarter of roman era that can be visited
through a suggestive way on which there is the modern town-theatre" Giuseppe
Verdi, the only theatre all over the world raised over an
archeological zone.
From castle to castle A
journey in the historic memory of the ancient land of Brindisi
allows to know the charm of an architectonic hierarchy that has
at its top a series of imposing castles. The battlements are for
this land, as for the whole Apulia, the most important
expression of the civil architecture, the element of continuity
that persists for many centuries and dominions, characterizing
the landscape and influencing remarkably the courses of
settlement.
Towers, bulwarks, fortresses built with a defensive
aim, buildings made and rearranged when security represented a
priority-necessity, but also elegant castles given the task to
state and emphasize the power of the ruler of that time.
Francavilla Fontana: Imperial Castle
In fact, the castles were often the domus appointed to a
rest place, to sumptuous parties, to hunting, to the rulers' love
meetings that, numerous, took place on these lands and also of
their courtiers.
Federico II, the "puer Apuliae" has given the sign of his
charisma to Brindisi in the powerful castle built on the coast of
the west bay in 1227. It was Ferdinand I of Aragon to make the
fortress surrounded by walls with four cylindrical large towers
and then Charles V ordered further extensions.
The Svevian castle is defined by the people of Brindisi as "land
castle" to distinguish it from another defensive building
desired by Ferdinand I of Aragon in the exterior harbor, on the
place of the eremitic abbey of Saint Andrew on the island,
called "fortress on the sea".
It's again the mythic Federico II who left to Oria its royal
mark in the powerful castle clung to the ancient acropolis of
the "Messapi", that has the particular for of an isosceles
triangle and is characterized by a large quantity of weapons
with barracks, storage, secret passages and tanks. At the bottom
of the tower of the "Salto" there is the entrance of the ancient
hypogean church of the saints Crisante and Daria.
The itinerary of the castles reveals in every town and in every
suburb a tower, a bastion or, at least, a name that recalls
the presence of a fortification in that place.
The history of the castle of Mesagne is strongly marked by
bloody fights: the ancient castle, built by Roberto il Guiscardo
in the XII century, was completely razed to the ground by
Manfredi in 1256. On its ruins in the XV century De' Balzo
Orsini erected the actual building that has had a lot of
rearrangements before assuming the peculiarities of a splendid
residential palace.
Oria tournament
On the main square of San Vito dei Normanni there is the castle
commissioned by the influential Boemondo d'Altavilla in the XII
century: the fortress has been rearranged different times until
achieving the actual elegant architectonic forms. The most
ancient nucleus of the castle built in the XV century by De'
Balzo Orsini in Carovigno goes back to the Norman period; it was
built to defend the town from the raids by Saracens and pirates.
Among the white houses of Ceglie Messapica stands out the big
castle that the duke Fabrizio Sanseverino, Lord of the town,
built in the XV century around two large preexistent towers.
Then there was a certain pacification that dissolved the
quarrelsomeness and reduced the pirate raids; in this climate of
rest a lot of feudal lords transformed their small fortresses in
elegant residences.
Like this, in Francavilla Fontana, Michele
Imperiali in 1730 transformed his castle built in the XV century
by De' Balzo Orsini in the actual residence that nowadays gives
hospitality to the town administration.
It's always thanks to Imperiali, a powerful and prestigious
family of these lands, that the ancient castles of Latiano and
Villa Castelli lost the various elements of fortification,
bringing out the character of family-residences.
The same thing did Chjurlia in Cellino San Marco where the
sixteenth century castle built by the feudal lord Antonio
Albrizzi was transformed and widened and the same happened for
the crenellated castle of Torre S. Susanna. While the castles
and the fortified palaces outline the feudal history of a lot of
communes of Brindisi, other important signs of the history of
the territory are the numerous towers on the coast, forming a
system of fortification made between the XV and XVI century to
defend our coasts from the pirates.
The "trullo", masterpiece of
peasant civilization Italian and foreign scholars have
made enquiries about the origin of the "trulli" and their
evolution in different times. For a lot of them the humble cone
presents a certain affinity with the Greek "tholos", but while
this last one required a project, a professional performance,
the "trullo" arises from a primary housing need and it is,
originally the solitary work of a master peasant, who, unaware
of the sophisticated building techniques, gives life to a
spontaneous architecture where the real "modulus" is the
wonderful integration with the environment.
Maybe in the past
the "trullo" with an unicellular character wasn't used as
dwelling place, but as storage for agricultural implements.
The peasant, employing the plentiful stones coming on the
surface, improved his building abilities and built dry "trulli",
without mortar or other material, stone over stone, putting them
one next the other according to the growing needs of the family.
It's possible to follow the evolution of the "trullo" on the
formal level: from the most archaic cone-shaped "trullo"
beginning from the floor level to one being based on a cylindrical
wall of about two meters, to the most advanced cone shaped dome
which is built on cubical base. The originality and charm of the
"trullo" are contained in its capacity of keeping during the
time the vitality and the use of the past; in fact it hasn't
been changed in a ruin-monument, but defying the centuries, it
remains the emblem of that peasant civilization that, between
anxieties and sacrifices has been able to preserve untouched,
the relationship man-environment.
Francavilla Fontana: Imperial Castle
Oria tournament
Trullo - Photo © 