San Severo · Poggio Imperiale · Serracapriola · Chieuti · FG
Four municipalities of the province of Foggia, from the plain of the Alto Tavoliere to the heights between the Saccione and the Fortore. The thread the sources allow us to draw is twofold. The first is the earthquake of 1627, which the Ministry of Culture's records recall both at San Severo and at Serracapriola. The second is the Albanian communities: the same database reports them at Poggio Imperiale and links the origin of Chieuti to that tradition. It is a journey for those who love towns read in their layout and their documents, more than in their monuments.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — San Severo
We begin from a low town. A study published in the review “la Capitanata” reads a letter of Pope Alexander IV of 8 May 1255 on the castles of the area, in which San Severo is the apex of the area described. Wikipedia relates that in 1521 the town paid 42,000 ducats to Charles V to buy back its self-government and that in 1579 it was sold to the di Sangro; a ministerial record on Torremaggiore confirms the weight of that family, recalling the de Sangro as princes of San Severo. The same Wikipedia dates to 30 July 1627 the earthquake that almost razed the town to the ground. The Ministry of Culture's record on the historic centre explains that the buildings were kept low “to contain the damage caused by the frequent earthquakes”, and that after that quake the walls were demolished bit by bit, until they disappeared entirely in the 19th century. At the end of the 19th century, in September 1896, according to a doctoral thesis of the University of Foggia, the first socialist congress of Capitanata was held here. To read the older territory there is the MAT, the Museo dell'Alto Tavoliere: according to museionline it is a civic museum founded in 1989 in the Palazzo San Francesco, a former 18th-century convent of the Conventual Friars, and it arranges the finds from prehistory to the Middle Ages, with Lower Palaeolithic hand-axes from the Gargano. Wikipedia names wine as a leading product, with a DOC zone. The publication SiViaggia recalls that Andrea Pazienza, who spent his childhood in San Severo, is buried here. The next day one heads towards the Lago di Lesina.
Day 2 — Poggio Imperiale and Serracapriola
Poggio Imperiale lies at about 73 metres above the sea and, for the Ministry of Culture's record, overlooks the Lago di Lesina; a decree of 1974 declared the area facing it panoramic. On the origins of the town the sources read do not agree, and here we leave them aside. A few fixed dates remain: the first church, San Placido, dates from 1760, and in 1761 Albanian families settled there. The record names as the main monuments the church of San Placido Martire and Palazzo de Ciccio, on Corso Vittorio Emanuele; the portal tuttitalia describes a grid plan and a countryside of cereals. At the border between Poggio Imperiale, Lesina, Apricena and San Nicandro Garganico the FAI points to the rural chapel of San Nazario, built according to its record between 1077 and 1220; the record also mentions a hot-water spring with remains from the Roman period.
Serracapriola, at about 270 metres, lies between the valleys of the Saccione and the Fortore, north of the Tavoliere. The ministerial record describes it as grown around the castle, with the walls later demolished, and marks out its history by dates: the attack by the Turks in 1566, the earthquake of 1627, the 18th-century “Stradone”, today Corso Garibaldi, the paving of the village in 1883. Of the castle the FAI describes a tower core with a star-shaped plan and herringbone masonry, then a rectangular body with four circular towers and a moat partly visible, with one of the two bridges; it is private property and the record does not indicate how to visit it. The detail that remains is in the Capuchin convent: according to Wikipedia in 1905 the future San Pio da Pietrelcina began his theological studies there, and his room can be visited; a 2017 document of the municipality of Chieuti, read on a private website, names a “Convento Padre Pio giovane” in Serracapriola. For Wikipedia the patron saint is San Mercurio, celebrated on 5 September. The Parco Nazionale del Gargano includes Serracapriola in the list of its municipalities. The next day, in our proposal, one goes to Chieuti.
Day 3 — Chieuti
Chieuti lies on a spur at about 221 metres, between the Saccione and the Fortore, about 8 kilometres from the coast. The Ministry of Culture's record links its origin “to the Albanian culture and tradition”, and the municipal statute commits the municipality to protecting “the language of the minority of Albanian origin existing in Chieuti”; Wikipedia gives its Albanian name, Qefti. The same statute divides the territory into three nuclei: the historic centre with the Palazzo di Città in Largo IV Novembre, the Marina di Chieuti and the Villaggio Fantina I, with an agricultural vocation. According to the GCatholic directory, the church of San Giorgio Martire, in Corso San Giorgio, is a parish of the Diocese of San Severo. The municipal statute gives a place of its own to the carrese, the race of the carts: it calls it a “historic event” and entrusts the municipality with organising it “with respect for animal welfare”; a text of the TratturArte project links it to the feast of San Giorgio. An animal-rights association describes four ox-drawn carts, driven on by riders with goads, racing through the crowd without barriers, and two different sources report that in the 2018 edition a man died. Towards the sea SiViaggia points to Torre Mozza, the base of a Spanish coastal tower of the early 16th century, and to the east the Abbazia di Sant'Agata, today semi-abandoned: private indications, to be checked on the spot. The mouths of the Fortore and the Saccione, which give their name to the nearby protected sites, close the journey as a horizon more than as a stage.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 15 defects corrected · not approved