The openings of the 59 itineraries, to be read one after another.
In the Middle Ages, the municipality recalls, Monte Sant'Angelo was a stage on the itinerary “Homo, Angelus, Deus”, and this journey treats it as such: it starts from the coast, climbs to the grotto of the Archangel and from there follows the other roads that reach it. The thread is not ours. The Gargano National Park describes a Via dei pellegrini from Vieste and a via Sacra-Langobardorum from Benevento; the 2015 map-guide “Discovering Puglia” traces routes from Siponto and from San Giovanni Rotondo; the municipality's page recalls that the medieval itinerary “Homo, Angelus, Deus” linked the sanctuary to Rome, Compostela and the Holy Land. It must be said honestly that the Park's pages stop at 2023 and the map-guide at 2015: the routes need to be reconfirmed with the bodies concerned. The order of the stages is our own proposal.
A journey that descends: from the edge of the southern Murgia, where Martina Franca looks over the Valle d'Itria, down to the rocks of Torre Guaceto. It rests on a trace from 2015, four routes of the regional map-guide (today not confirmed) that pass the baton from Martina Franca to Carovigno; the chain is ours. The historical thread is thin, but it is there: the dukes of Martina reappear at Locorotondo and at Alberobello, and Ostuni and Carovigno preserve Aragonese walls. Alberobello and Castellana Grotte lie outside those routes: they are declared detours. It is for those who travel slowly and read the dates on the walls.
Seven towns in the province of Foggia, in the Subappennino Dauno. What links them, in the sources, is two things: a road and a frontier. The road is the one that the Ministry of Culture's records call the Traiana and that the sources route through Celle, Castelluccio and Troia, and that some scholars also place near Faeto. The frontier is the one marked, one after another, by the tower and the walls wanted by the catepan Basil Boioannes, by the Saracens settled by Frederick II at Lucera and by the Provençal soldiers sent against them by Charles I of Anjou. It must be said that the four routes of the 2015 regional map-guide from which it comes were tied to a programme of that year: no source read says that they still exist.
Four municipalities in the province of Bari that the Alta Murgia Park Authority lists, all of them, among the thirteen of its territory: a limestone plateau of dolines, caves and pastures, with stone masserie, cereals, almond trees and vines. The thread is double. There is bread: the European production specification for Pane di Altamura DOP includes in the production area Altamura, Gravina and Poggiorsini, but not Santeramo, which enters here for the rock and for a pilgrims' cave. And there is carved stone: the gravina of Gravina, the Pulo, the cavities where the skeleton of a man, frescoes, burials have been found. It is a slow journey for those who want to read a harsh landscape through its rock churches and its museums. The order of the stages and the division into days are our own proposal.
Four towns in the province of Bari, between the plain behind the city and the edge of the plateau: Toritto, for the Ministry of Culture's record, lies partly within the Alta Murgia National Park, Cassano, for its municipality, at the gates of the Park. The project register linked them to the tratturi, but no source read uses this word for these places, and the theme must be dropped. Another one holds, quieter. Three towns out of four have a castle born between Byzantines and Normans, Cassano a 14th-century circuit of walls, passed from feudal lord to feudal lord; and beneath the stone runs water: at Acquaviva the name comes from the water table, according to the italia.it portal, at Cassano the natural springs favoured, according to the Ministry, an early settlement. It is a journey for those who love reading the dates in the walls.
Four towns in the province of Bari on the edge of the Murge. The Ministry of Culture's records place Turi on the first spurs of the plateau and Casamassima at its foot, while the 1933 Enciclopedia Italiana sets Gioia del Colle in the saddle between the north-western Murge and the south-eastern ones. The most concrete link is the vine: the production regulations of the Gioia del Colle DOC, read in a copy still to be re-checked against the ministerial text, include all four municipalities in the production area. The theme of the masserie, on the other hand, holds up poorly: the sources consulted hardly mention them, and in Turi the cherry counts for more than the grape. What remains is a journey of stone, for those who love castles, excavations and fiefs, with a Peucetian site at its centre. The order of the stops and the division into days are our proposal.
Four centres south-east of Bari, all in the province of Bari, which by different routes looked towards Conversano. There, according to a volume from the Basilicata University Press, one of the first Norman counties was born; the first records of Putignano, from the 10th century, according to the Ministry of Culture's record tie it to Conversano; Rutigliano became a “castellum” perhaps in order to make itself independent of it; in the modern age Noci entered its county and remained there until 1806. The second thread is that of the lords in religious habit: the mitred abbesses of Conversano, the monks of Monopoli and then the knights of Rhodes and of Malta at Putignano, the canons of San Nicola at Rutigliano. It is a journey for those who love reading towns through their walls, their gates and their archives. The theme of the trulli, which we had imagined, finds support in none of the sources read.
Three centres on the coast south of Bari, all in the province of Bari, which, in our synthesis of the sources, have features in common: an old core enclosed by walls, a harbour or a cliff, a defence turned towards the sea. The thread holds up on the documents. Against the pirates, according to the italia.it portal, the castle of Mola was built; exposed to pirates was seafaring Monopoli in the Byzantine and Norman age, according to the Ministry of Culture's record; and according to the ministerial records Polignano was under Venice between 1494 and 1530, Monopoli from 1456 and then, from 1509, under Spain. It is a journey for those who want to read the coast through its stones: castles, churches, gates. The sources on Monopoli and Polignano are richer than those on Mola, and the account follows their weight.
Five municipalities of the province of Bari: the provincial capital and four centres of the immediate hinterland. No source links them in an itinerary, and the grouping is ours. One thread, however, the documents do show. Modugno, writes its municipality, lies in the “Bari basin” and was a fief of the archbishops of Bari; Bitritto too was a fief of the archbishop of Bari; the abbey of Ognissanti di Cuti, at Valenzano, passed in 1295 to the Basilica di San Nicola, and its first abbot was also its rector. In our reading, it is a journey for those who want to see how a medieval city stretched out over the nearby countryside. The thread holds for Modugno, Bitritto and Valenzano; for Capurso the sources read say little, and the account takes that into account.
Four towns south and south-east of Bari, all in the province of Bari, which no source gathers under a single name: the grouping is ours. The thread that links them holds only in part, and it is the countryside. The Ministry of Culture's record links the economy of Triggiano to almonds and olive trees; the municipality of Cellamare tells of stone oil mills driven by animals; in Noicattaro the theatre was born in an oil mill of the dukes; Adelfia, according to the 1929 Enciclopedia Italiana, was among the wine-producing centres of the Terra di Bari. Beneath, the limestone cut by the lame, the erosional furrows that the sources mention at Triggiano and at Adelfia; at Noicattaro, a territory of the lame under a protection order. It is a journey for those who look for small stories: churches rebuilt several times, the castle of Cellamare turned into a residence, a plague, two villages that became one municipality.
Four towns in the province of Bari, two on the sea and two that the sources do not describe as coastal, which the sources link more than the map suggests. Molfetta had a Gonzaga prince, and Giovinazzo too, according to the tourist website Discover Giovinazzo, which carries the Comune's copyright, passed to the Gonzaga; Terlizzi, according to Wikipedia, depended on the counts of Giovinazzo from the 11th century, and in 1770 the two fiefs, united, passed together to the Regia Corte; in the 4th century BC, according to Wikipedia, the territory of Rhyps also included Molfetta and Terlizzi; in Roman times Ruvo was a municipium along the Via Traiana. It is a journey for those who want to move from the coastal defences of the sixteenth century to the nineteenth-century collections of the hinterland, following icons that tradition has arriving from the sea or found in the woods, towers and counts.
Five comuni in the province of Bari, read through their stones: a Romanesque cathedral, a castle turned into a palace, at Palo, medieval walls enlarged to take in new inhabitants. The sources do genuinely interweave some of these centres: an architect from Bitonto signs a bell tower at Palo del Colle, a coalition with Bitonto destroys the casale from which a borgo of Palo is born, Grumo was a Roman municipium like Butuntum, Binetto, according to the GAL Nuovo Fior d'Olivi, was joined to Grumo from 1927 to 1946. The theme of oil, on the other hand, holds only in part: it is documented at Bitonto, at Bitetto with its termite olive, in the olive groves of the territory of Palo; for Binetto and Grumo the sources read are silent. The set of five comuni, the order of the stages and the days are our proposal.
Four comuni between the Murgia and the Ofanto and a castle that is not a comune: Andria, Minervino Murge and Spinazzola are in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, Corato in that of Bari. The hypothesised thread, "castles and plateau", holds only in part. The full castle is Castel del Monte, in the territory of Andria; elsewhere the sources speak of four Norman donjons on the walls of Corato, of a castle turned into a town hall at Minervino, of a single surviving tower at Spinazzola. The plateau holds better: the Murgia that the castle dominates, whose towns Norman counts and then, at Minervino and Spinazzola, the Pignatelli held in fief, and which at Spinazzola the Ente Parco protects as a geosite. It is a journey for those who want to read stones and documents together, and accept a theme that does not close every circle.
Three towns in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani that today form a single archdiocese, Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie: so recall the Comune of Trani's record on its cathedral and a PDF edited by a religious congregation on the co-cathedral of Barletta. This is the most solid thread of the journey: three cathedrals ("mother churches" is our phrase: the Comune of Trani uses it only for the cathedral of Trani, Barletta and Bisceglie are co-cathedrals), each with its own history, and around them castles, harbours and medieval quarters. The sea is there, and the sources name it: Bisceglie is for its Comune "barricaded on the sea, around an ancient harbour", the moat of the castle of Trani was flooded by the sea according to the FAI, Barletta has sandy beaches and a marina according to italia.it. No source, however, presents the three centres as a unified coast: the coastal theme is compatible, not demonstrated. It is a journey for those who read towns in their stones and documents.
Four comuni in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani that the website of the Parco naturale regionale Fiume Ofanto counts all among the eleven comuni of the Park, established by regional law no. 37 of 2007. The journey descends from the tombs and the Roman bridge of Canosa to the coast of the salt works. The thread rests on two documented facts: the river, because the four comuni all have territory in the Ofanto Park, and salt, because according to the Ministry of Culture's record the colony of San Ferdinando was to be populated by families from the Saline di Barletta, today's Margherita di Savoia. It must be said honestly that no official source read links the salt works to the Ofanto and that on Margherita di Savoia the sources are scarce. It is a journey for those seeking archaeology and plains of water.
Four municipalities in the province of Brindisi, which the 2015 regional map-guide joined in route no.37, “Ciclovia dell'Acquedotto (I)”. The thread that binds them, in the documents read, is twofold. The first is Messapian: Ceglie and Oria were cities of that people; at Francavilla the Province of Brindisi records a small settlement between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, at Villa Castelli an area inhabited from the late Neolithic to the middle of the Bronze Age. The second is the countryside: masserie with trulli and crypts, and a town, Villa Castelli, born from an estate. The theme holds well for Ceglie and Oria, less for the other two, where the Messapians are a few lines and the story moves on to the feudal lords, the Imperiali, lords of Francavilla and of Oria and owners of the estate from which Villa Castelli was born. Almost everything comes from a Province information sheet from around 2001. It is a journey for those who read a territory from the caves to the towers.
Four municipalities in the province of Brindisi. The 2015 map-guide “Discovering Puglia” joined Mesagne and San Donaci in route no.43, “Via dell'olio (I)”. On olive oil the documents read do not hold up: the membership of these municipalities in the Terra d'Otranto PDO remains contradicted. Two threads, however, do hold. The first is wine: according to the text of the production rules of the Salice Salentino DOC, read in a private copy, San Pancrazio and San Donaci lie entirely within the production area and Cellino in part; Mesagne, according to a technical report that is not the production rules, belongs to the Brindisi DOC. The second thread is older: from 1100 the tithes of Mesagne went to the church of Brindisi, and San Donaci and San Pancrazio were villages of its archbishops until the abolition of feudalism. Cellino instead had feudal families.
Four municipalities in the province of Brindisi, linked by an idea of the 2015 regional map-guide: route no.46, “Fra boschi, storia e archeologia”, from Brindisi to San Pietro Vernotico and to Torchiarolo. The theme holds only in part, and it is worth saying so. The history is there, and it is dense with documents; the archaeology has its centre at Valesio, whose materials are found in the provincial museum of Brindisi; the woods rest on a single source still to be re-verified, which describes the cork-oak wood of Santa Teresa and dei Lucci. San Vito dei Normanni was not on the 2015 route, and its information comes almost entirely from Wikipedia: it will get a few lines. An unexpected thread, instead, links the places to the years 1943-1945, when the king stayed in three of these municipalities. The journey is for those who willingly read a town through its documents.
Four municipalities in the province of Brindisi, among olive trees and vines. The starting point comes from the 2015 regional map-guide, which joined Torre Santa Susanna and Erchie in route no.51, “Ciclovia dell'Acquedotto (II)”; but no open source so far links the cycle route to these towns, and the aqueduct theme does not hold here. Another thread holds instead, documented by the municipalities: Torre Santa Susanna was for centuries subject to Oria, until the autonomy of 1564, while Latiano passed in 1641 to the Imperiali, marquises of Oria and Francavilla. In Torre, moreover, oil has dug into the rock; in Latiano olive mills and palmenti sustained the economy after Unification. Erchie and San Michele Salentino have little verified information and will get a few lines. It is a journey for those who willingly read minor towns through their documents.
This journey runs along the north coast of the Gargano, within the National Park, and ends in the open sea, at the Isole Tremiti. The five municipalities are all in the province of Foggia. The thread that binds them lies in the Ministry of Culture sheets: in 1177 Peschici, Rodi, Vico and Ischitella were all part of the Honor of Monte Sant'Angelo. Vico and Ischitella suffered the earthquake of 1646, and in Peschici, Vico and Ischitella the mother churches were consecrated or restored around 1675. Offshore, the monks of Santa Maria di Tremiti owned the castle of Peschici. It is an itinerary for those who willingly read walls, gates and water landscapes. It must be said honestly that Rodi Garganico is poorly documented, that no municipal website could be reached and that the order of the stops is our own proposal.
On the northern side of the Gargano, according to the Park, two lagoons lie side by side, and between them rises Monte d'Elio. All four municipalities on this journey are in the Parco Nazionale del Gargano. The thread is shallow water and those who have lived on it: at Lesina the sources document fishponds as early as the 8th century, at Varano monks who fished for eels and grey mullet. The theme holds fully for Lesina, on its lagoon, and for Cagnano Varano and Carpino, which the Park links to the Varano lagoon. For San Nicandro it holds only in part: its connection with the water runs through a long lawsuit over the civic use rights of the Lesina lagoon, known from a private source, and through the abandoned town of Devia, which the Park places between the lagoons.
This journey comes down from the Gargano towards the plain: Mattinata, Rignano Garganico and Apricena are among the municipalities of the Parco Nazionale del Gargano, while San Paolo di Civitate is, for the Regione Puglia, “a small town of the Tavoliere”. It must be said honestly that the theme “promontory and plain” holds only as a geographical description: no source read links the four towns in a single route, and the regional map-guide of 2015 touches only Apricena. The most solid thread the sources offer is another one, the long time of human presence: the Park's records document the necropolis of Monte Saraceno, the burials and paintings of Grotta Paglicci, the chipped tools of Pirro Nord; at San Paolo di Civitate a museum tells of a frontier community between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC.
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.
Four municipalities of the province of Foggia, in the Tavoliere; the portal italia.it places Foggia at its centre. The thread we propose is a change in the use of the land. Foggia was the seat of the Dogana della mena delle pecore, which obliged the flocks to winter in the Tavoliere; Carapelle, Orta Nova and Ordona are three of the farming villages that the Ministry of Culture's records link to the “reali siti”, colonies of peasants born on lands and farmsteads that had belonged to the Jesuits. Among the sources read, a tratturo appears in only one of these towns, Orta Nova. In the background remains the ancient city of Herdonia, near Ordona. It is a journey for those who love reading towns in their plans and their documents, more than in their monuments.
Four municipalities of the province of Foggia, from the southern part of the Tavoliere to the coast where the salt pans reach. The thread that links them, in the sources read, is the land and who owned it: the Teutonic Knights in the countryside of Cerignola, the Jesuits of the Collegio Romano at Stornara and Stornarella, the colonists settled by the king after their expulsion and, at Zapponeta, according to private sources, an 18th-century baron. Wheat appears in the sources only as a name (the Fosse del Grano); the wetlands lie just beyond Zapponeta, in neighbouring municipalities. It is a journey for those who read towns in archive papers more than in monuments.
Four municipalities in the province of Foggia. The thread that links them is more historical than thematic: Ascoli Satriano stands on three hills above the Carapelle valley, Candela between the Ofanto and the Carapelle, Sant'Agata at about eight hundred metres in the southern Subappennino Dauno. Along the road the same names come back: the Doria, feudal lords at Candela and later at Rocchetta; and in the Museo Diocesano of Ascoli a cross that comes from Rocchetta. The hypothesised theme, “villages and countryside”, holds only in part: the sources speak of historic centres, castles and finds, almost never of countryside. A caveat: little is known about Rocchetta. The order of the stops is our proposal.
Four towns in the province of Foggia, all built high up: a study by the Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria describes Castelluccio dei Sauri as a settlement stretched along a ridge and Deliceto as a hilltop settlement, the Ministry of Culture's record calls Accadia a ridge town, and the Provincia places Bovino at about 650 metres of altitude, with a view over the Cervaro valley. The thread that links them is Bovino: Castelluccio was donated to its Church, its lords the Guevara bought the fief, one of its bishops revived the sanctuary of the Consolazione near Deliceto. The second thread is the ground that moves: ISPRA lists all four among the municipalities damaged by the 1980 earthquake. The theme we had started from, “villages and woods”, holds little: the woods appear in the sources as names, not as places described. It is a journey for those who read towns through their churches, their cracks and their documents.
Four villages in the province of Foggia, all recorded by the Visit Monti Dauni portal of the GAL Meridaunia. The thread, in the sources, is double. The first is a path: the Sentiero Frassati di Puglia, which encircles Monte Cornacchia and touches Biccari. The second is a grass road: the Regio Tratturo Castel di Sangro-Lucera, which the GAL Meridaunia points out at Alberona and Volturino, the Comune of Volturara Appula in its own territory and the Ministry of Culture's record at the origin of the shape of Volturino. The Sentiero Frassati, among the four towns, touches only Biccari. It is a journey for those who walk and for those who read towns from their shape.
Five towns in the province of Foggia, between the heights of the Daunia and the Fortore valley. What links them is a story of people in flight. Motta Montecorvino, according to its ministerial record, was born from inhabitants of an ancient Byzantine stronghold, bears the name of Montecorvino, a city founded by the Byzantines and later abandoned, and depended on it as a casale of the barony; an archaeological report of 2019, to be re-checked, has its inhabitants come precisely from Montecorvino; Castelnuovo della Daunia, Casalvecchio di Puglia and Casalnuovo Monterotaro took in Albanian refugees between the 15th and 16th centuries, and in Casalvecchio, the Comune says, the elderly still speak arbëreshë. The theme of paths we had started from holds little: two routes of a 2015 programme touch only Pietramontecorvino and Castelnuovo, and we have found no confirmation that they exist today. It is a journey for those who read towns through their origins more than through their monuments.
Four towns in the province of Foggia along the course of the Fortore. Roseto Valfortore stands in the upper valley of the river, according to the Ministry of Culture's record; San Marco la Catola, Celenza Valfortore and Carlantino look out over the lake of Occhito, which the Fortore forms behind a dam built between 1958 and 1966. Celenza and Carlantino share a history: the latter was born in 1582 as a new casale in the fief of the former, at the wish of a Baron Gambacorta. The Government's Strategia Aree Interne describes the area as fragile and marked by depopulation. The theme of paths holds little: two routes of a 2015 programme touch three of the four towns; one of the two, the Sentiero Frassati, is also mentioned by the GAL Meridaunia near the swimming pools of Roseto, with a different destination; of the current route we have no confirmation. It is a journey for those who have time for small towns and their papers.
They are three towns in the province of Foggia; two of them border Campania. For two of them the border is also administrative history: Monteleone di Puglia, according to the records of the Regione Puglia, passed from the province of Avellino to that of Foggia in 1929; Anzano, according to its Municipality, was Irpinian from 1862 to 1931, under the name Anzano degli Irpini. The second thread is the earthquakes, which in Panni brought down a tower and in Panni and Anzano destroyed churches, some of them rebuilt. The journey is for those who accept small towns and scant sources. The theme of villages and trails holds only in part: the only trail described in the sources reaches Panni, and of Monteleone almost nothing is known but its feudal history, not its monuments. The order of the stops and the days are our proposal.
Four towns in the province of Taranto built on the rim of a gravina, those furrows in the rock that the Municipality of Palagianello describes as karst incisions deeper than they are wide. All four appear in the list of municipalities of the Parco naturale regionale Terra delle Gravine, published by the Ente Parco, and all four, by different routes and at different times, ended up in the diocese of Castellaneta: this is the second, less visible thread of this journey. The theme holds for each stop, but with different weight: of Palagianello and Ginosa the Ministry of Culture's records say a great deal, of Laterza the official sources we have read say little, and we say so. The grouping is ours. We propose it to those who want to read a town starting from the rock it stands on.
Four municipalities in the province of Taranto that the Ente Parco lists among the fourteen of the Parco naturale regionale Terra delle Gravine, established by regional law no. 18 of 2005. The thread is the rock: according to the Ente Parco, gravine form in two ways, and the Ente Parco places the villages of Petruscio and of the Madonna della Scala in the cavities of one of the two forms. The second thread is historical and holds only for two stops: Mottola and Massafra were part of the same diocese, that of Mottola, when it was suppressed in 1818. The theme holds with different weights. Of Massafra the Municipality's records say a great deal, of Mottola a Ministry of Culture record speaks; for Crispiano we have mainly a tourist portal whose management is uncertain, and of Statte the sources say little, and we say so. The grouping is ours. It is a journey for those who want to see cave houses and rock churches and understand why they are there.
We start from the old town of Taranto, which the Municipality describes as an island, and continue, on a route of our own making, towards three municipalities in the same province. The theme that had been proposed to us, “city and sea”, holds only in part: the sources read speak of the sea for Taranto, Leporano and Pulsano, and of Torricella they say only that it has a seaside locality, Torre Ovo. Two threads, on the other hand, really hold: the towers and fortresses against raids from the sea, which the sources recall at Leporano and Pulsano, and the flight from the coast to escape the pirates that the Municipality of Torricella places at the origin of the town; and a family, the Muscettola, princes of Leporano, whom the municipal pages also find at Pulsano and Torricella. The grouping is ours. It is a journey for those who want to read a layered city and then a countryside of castles and fiefs.
Four municipalities of the eastern Taranto area, all within the production zone of Primitivo di Manduria according to the DOC production specification (text read in a copy, with amendments up to 2014), and a Messapian city at the centre. This is the thread, and it is best stated honestly: archaeology, in the official sources, is all in Manduria, where the Ministry of Culture records three circuits of walls and a necropolis of more than twelve hundred tombs. Sava, Maruggio and Avetrana tell something else: fiefs, an order of knights, an oil mill dug into the rock, a border that a local document describes as contested over salt. Wine links the places as a denomination and as a landscape of vineyards, not as history documented town by town.
Four municipalities in the province of Taranto and a theme that holds only halfway. Ceramics, in the sources read, belong to Grottaglie: the Ministry of Culture's record notes there a quarter of workshops with jars and amphorae stacked up from the sixteenth century onwards, and that is where the journey stops longest. The countryside links the other places more soberly: the encyclopaedia sapere.it associates Grottaglie and Montemesola with the wine grapes of the Aleatico di Puglia DOC, in Montemesola the Ministry describes houses with a basement now used as a cellar, in Carosino the FAI tells of a fountain that pours wine at the end of summer. Monteiasi, on the other hand, remains almost silent.
Four towns in the countryside east of Taranto, and a thread that can be seen from two sides. The first is the Albania Tarantina. San Marzano and Faggiano are hamlets of the Albania Tarantina: according to the Municipality of San Marzano populated by soldiers of Scanderbeg between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, according to the Unione Montedoro Greeks and Albanians flowed into Faggiano from the second half of the fifteenth century through much of the seventeenth; and Fragagnano is called historically arbëreshë by a single private source. The second is March: in all four the sources link to San Giuseppe a fire, a table or a patron saint. Lizzano stands outside the first thread, because its Municipality traces its origins to refugees who came from Lecce. The wine theme, hypothesised at the start, holds only in part: vineyards and Primitivo appear, but not as history documented town by town. It is a journey for those who look for minor centres.
Three towns close to one another, in the surroundings of Taranto, and one, Palagiano, which the regional portal places 22 km west of the city: it is a short journey, for those who love minor centres and accept many open questions. The sources read speak of the Taranto Murge, of tufa quarries, of masserie. The thread that holds, for Roccaforzata and Monteparano, is the Albanian presence: Monteparano lies, according to its Municipality, in the “Albania Tarantina”; according to the Municipality of Monteparano San Giorgio Ionico too falls within the “Albania Tarantina”, but without traces of that culture, except in some surnames; Roccaforzata recalls in its official history the Albanian soldiers called in by Ferrante I d'Aragona. Roccaforzata stands on the highest hill of the Monte di Sant'Elia, frequented since the Iron Age. Palagiano stays outside this thread and receives a few honest lines. The order of the stops and the division into days are ours.
A provincial capital and four nearby centres, all in the province of Lecce. The declared thread is the Baroque, and it holds only in part: the sources document it in Lecce, in Lequile, which the Ministry of Culture's record counts among the main centres of the Salento Baroque, and in Monteroni, where Wikipedia describes a Palazzo Baronale in Lecce Baroque. San Cesario tells rather of three hamlets merged in the seventeenth century and a long practice of distillation; San Donato of a hamlet born without walls. What holds the journey together, then, is a measure: a city where a single façade, that of Santa Croce, required a century of work according to the FAI, and three towns (San Cesario, San Donato, Monteroni) that, according to the ministerial records, keep their centre between a lordly palazzo and the church. We propose it knowing that opening hours and tickets remain to be checked.
Five centres in the province of Lecce that the sources describe in a similar way: almost all are born from the end of other settlements. Trepuzzi grew with the inhabitants of abandoned villages, Squinzano from the disappearance of nearby hamlets, Campi Salentina after the destruction of isolated hamlets, Novoli, according to a historian cited by the Municipality, from the transfer of the inhabitants of Porziano; and Surbo, according to its Municipality, was born from the casale d'Aurio, of which a church remains on the border with Lecce. It is a journey for those who read a town from the plan of its streets and the dates of its fiefs. The thread holds unevenly: for Trepuzzi the material is scant, and we say so. The order of the stops and the division into days are our proposal.
Five municipalities in the province of Lecce. Three of them, Salice Salentino, Veglie and Guagnano, fall with their entire territory within the production zone of the Salice Salentino DOC, whose red is made from at least 75% Negroamaro grapes according to the production regulations republished by the protection Consortium. The thread holds only in part, and this must be said: Carmiano and Arnesano do not appear in the regulations, and the two routes of the 2015 map guide published on dms.puglia.it that passed through Salice and Veglie were called “Via dell'olio”. Wine therefore serves as landscape and as boundary. The sources, on the other hand, tell something else: an earthquake, feudal lords, frescoes in the Byzantine tradition carved into the rock, a marquis's palace with eighteenth-century rooms, reopened to the public in 2009 after restoration. It is a journey for those who love small towns and accept that opening times and visits remain to be checked.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, between the Ionian coast and the countryside behind it. The thread is an ancient fear, the one that came from the sea. The Comune of Nardò links the towers of Porto Selvaggio to the capture of Otranto in 1480 and to the towers that Charles V wanted “each in sight of the next”. In Porto Cesareo, according to the regional portal, the very name of the town comes from a tower, Torre Cesarea. In Leverano, according to the Comune, the tower of Frederick II served as a lookout towards Porto Cesareo. The theme holds well on the coast and less so inland: in Copertino a castle remains, the rest is devotion. The sources also tell of other things: caves inhabited in prehistory, a museum on the post-war Jewish memory, churches rebuilt after an earthquake. It is a journey for those who accept that opening times and visits remain to be checked.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, held together by a town on an island and by what lay around it. The theme of the sea and the historic centre holds in full only in Gallipoli, and this must be said: Sannicola was a frazione of Gallipoli until 1908, but when it had a territory of its own the coast was left out of it. The real thread is another, and it lies in the sources: the same wars of the late fifteenth century, the Venetians of 1484, the Galateo, born in Galatone, who saw the sackings, a Castriota who, according to one scholar, is said to have defended Gallipoli and Galatone from the French. It is a journey for those who love reading walls, archives and minor churches, and accept that in Tuglie and Galatone the official sources could not be reached.
Four neighbouring municipalities in the province of Lecce, which a 2015 map guide joined in a 15 km route called “Tracce mariane”. The name holds at three stops out of four: in Alezio the sanctuary of the Madonna della Lizza, in Parabita the basilica of Maria Santissima della Coltura, in Casarano the church of Santa Maria della Croce, known as Casaranello. In Matino the sources consulted do not point to a Marian site, and the town comes in for its olive presses carved into the rock and for the Palazzo Marchesale Del Tufo. The most solid thread, however, leads to Gallipoli: the people of Gallipoli fleeing the Angevins took refuge in Alezio, and at Casaranello an inscription recalls a bishop of Gallipoli. It is a short journey, for those who look at frescoes and mosaics with patience and accept that opening times and visits remain to be checked.
Five municipalities in the province of Lecce, between the tower of Torre Suda and the Messapian walls of Ugento. The hypothesised theme, coast and countryside, holds only in part: the sources consulted speak of the sea for Racale (Torre Suda) and, in a 2014 text on the old website of the Comune of Alliste, for Felline, not for Taviano and Melissano. The thread that holds best is that of the feudal lords. In 1411 Racale passes to the Tolomei, a Sienese family; in 1415 Puccio Tolomei grants rights and liberties to the community of Alliste; at Felline a restoration in 2005 brought to light the portraits of Camillo and Porsia Tolomei. Ugento closes with a history that the sources follow from the menhirs and the Messapians to the d'Amore marquises. It is a journey for those who love churches, towers and small museums, and accept that Taviano remains almost silent and that opening times and visits are to be checked.
Four towns of the Salento, all in the province of Lecce, two of which the sources place on the Serre salentine: Ruffano on the flank of its Serra, Supersano with its masserie at the foot of the serre. The thread the records truly support is not oil but the Church: Taurisano, Supersano and Torrepaduli were already under the bishop of Ugento before 1818, and still are today; and it seems to us that at Taurisano, Ruffano and Supersano the Greek world surfaces, with a sundial that Wikipedia describes with the hours in Latin and Greek characters, priests of the Greek rite, Greek inscriptions in a crypt. Oil enters only as landscape, in the olive trees of the Serre and in a centuries-old olive grove of the Parco Paduli; of greenhouse cultivation there is no trace. It is a journey for those who accept small towns and uneven documentation: Ruffano is rich in records, Supersano and Collepasso have few, and the account respects this.
It is a short journey through the inland Salento, all in the province of Lecce, built around Galatina and four neighbouring towns. The thread the sources allow us to pull is twofold. On one side a feudal family, the Orsini del Balzo, who at Galatina had Santa Caterina built and at Neviano, according to the regional record, the castle; on the other the traditions the places preserve: the chapel of the tarantate, the confraternities, the ceramics of Cutrofiano, the papier-mâché boat of Aradeo. It must be said honestly that the theme holds up well at Galatina and at Cutrofiano, while for Neviano, Aradeo and Seclì the sources read are few, the pages of the Comuni of Aradeo and Seclì could not be opened and that of Neviano was not found: there the account becomes brief. It is an itinerary for those who like to read churches by dates and patrons.
Five towns of the Grecìa Salentina, all in the province of Lecce and all in the Unione dei comuni that bears that name and has its seat at Calimera. The thread is a language and a rite. According to the Unione, Greek religious arrived here in the Byzantine age, the Greek clergy then held out only in a few centres, and griko, a “Hellenophone language” handed down “only orally”, is still spoken in some towns. It must be said honestly that the sources read tell this story well at Martignano, Sternatia and Zollino, while on Calimera and Martano they are scarce: the website of the Comune of Calimera could not be opened, that of Martano has no historical pages. The grouping of the five towns is our own choice. It is a journey for those who love small towns and the traces of a language preserved by voice.
It is a journey through five towns of the province of Lecce that belong to the Unione dei comuni della Grecìa Salentina. The thread the sources support is not so much the language as the rite: a Greek inscription on a bell tower, an archpriest who signs in Greek, a crypt with a dated fresco, a convent built to draw the territory away from the Greek rites. Beneath it, a second, feudal thread: the County of Soleto and the Orsini del Balzo. It must be said honestly that on the griko spoken today the sources read contradict one another for Soleto, Melpignano and Castrignano, and that for Carpignano Wikipedia describes it as not Greek-speaking: the language stays in the background, documented without contradictions between the sources only at Corigliano. It is an itinerary for those who read churches by dates and inscriptions.
Five municipalities of the province of Lecce and a thread that the sources support only in part: the standing stones and the stone tables of Salento prehistory. For Giurdignano, Giuggianello and Minervino di Lecce the theme rests on Ministry of Culture records that describe menhirs and dolmens, with measurements and dates; for Palmariggi on a single menhir known from private sources; for Cannole on nothing, and there the journey changes subject and follows the language and a route that a 2015 map-guide titled “Devozione dei pellegrini”. In our proposal it is a route to be done partly on foot among olive groves and country lanes to see stones, and to live with many open questions: of no menhir in the group can the records say the age with certainty. The order of the stages and the division into days are our own proposal.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, from Otranto southwards in our sequence; one, Uggiano la Chiesa, is not included in the coastal Park. The hypothesised theme, coast and castles, holds only in part: the sources read document the castle of Otranto and that of Casamassella, a hamlet of Uggiano la Chiesa, and no castle at Santa Cesarea Terme or at Diso. The thread that holds better is another: the gaze towards the sea and towards Otranto. Uggiano, its Municipality writes, grew up around a watchtower defending the city; lookout towers also mark the coast of Otranto and of Santa Cesarea; and three of the four municipalities lie in the same regional Park. It is a journey for those who enjoy reading floors, crypts and cliffs, and who accept that for Santa Cesarea and Diso the account stays brief.
It is a journey through inland Salento, five villages in the province of Lecce. The thread that the sources read allow us to follow is that of stones set upright: the menhirs along the road between Cursi and Bagnolo, and then the columns raised in the villages, at Bagnolo, at Maglie and at Muro Leccese, where there is the column of the Four Evangelists. Alongside is the pietra leccese, which at Cursi has an ecomuseum. It must be said honestly that the theme hypothesised at the start, “stone and masserie”, holds only halfway: the sources read say nothing about masserie, and for Maglie and Muro Leccese the Municipalities' pages could not be opened, so there the account becomes brief. It is an itinerary for those who read villages starting from their minor monuments.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, from the dolines of Sanarica to the coast of Castro. The thread that the sources read support is that of the Greek rite and of the diocese of Castro: the Municipality of Poggiardo links its crypt of Santa Maria degli Angeli to the church of the Santi Stefani at Vaste and to the Madonna della Grotta at Ortelle, among the church-crypts around Otranto; Ortelle, according to Wikipedia (to be re-checked), was a parish of the diocese of Castro until 1818, and when the raids emptied Castro the bishop's seat passed to Poggiardo. The hypothesised theme, “landscape and devotion”, thus holds only in part: the landscape enters with the dolines, the valley of the Canali and the sea caves, but for Sanarica no official source could be read and the account there is brief. It is a journey for those who gladly go underground.
It is a slow journey through six villages of inland Salento, all in the province of Lecce. The thread that the sources support is a specific countryside: the Parco agricolo multifunzionale dei Paduli, a plain of olive groves, canals and vore that took the place of an oak wood, and that includes four of the six municipalities, Botrugno, San Cassiano, Nociglia and Surano. Around it, small historic centres of medieval or older origin. It must be said honestly that the theme holds only in part: Spongano and Sogliano Cavour are not in the Park, the sources on them are few and there the account becomes shorter. It is an itinerary for those who read the agrarian landscape and the shape of villages.
Five municipalities in the province of Lecce; four, Tricase, Andrano, Tiggiano and Corsano, are among the municipalities of the Parco naturale regionale Costa Otranto - Santa Maria di Leuca e Bosco di Tricase. The thread that the sources read support is that of defence: a mother church damaged by the Turks in 1480, a castle perhaps adapted in those years according to a private portal, coastal towers built under Spanish rule and connected by sight one to another. The theme hypothesised at the start, “oil and coast”, holds only in part: oil is mentioned only by the hypogeal oil mills of Corsano and of Specchia, and for Specchia only by private sources or the GAL; for Andrano the municipal pages on the sites could not be opened, and there the account becomes shorter. It is a journey for those who read villages from their dated stones.
Five municipalities in the province of Lecce, at the far tip of the Capo di Leuca, linked by one destination: the sanctuary that the Diocese of Ugento calls the Basilica of S. Maria de finibus terrae, a pilgrimage destination already in the Middle Ages. The regional map-guide of 2015 traced two routes, one from Alessano through Salve, the other from Morciano, which, passing through Barbarano, Giuliano and Patù, reached Castrignano del Capo; and at Barbarano, according to italia.it, the pilgrims bound for Finibus Terrae used to stop. The theme holds only in part, however: those routes were tied to a programme of that year and it is not verified that they exist today, and Gagliano del Capo does not appear in them. Gagliano has another road, the salt road. It is a journey for those who want to read a cape of land through the stones that led to it.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, in the Capo di Leuca. The hypothesised theme, “Salento Middle Ages”, comes from a route in the regional map-guide of 2015 and holds only in part: the GAL Capo di Leuca records date to the 12th century the first documents of Miggiano and the castle of Acquarica, to the 9th the crypt of Santa Marina, to the 13th century the chapel of Celsorizzo, but the main church of Alessano, the former cathedral, is a church decided upon in the 18th century. The thread that the sources support best is another one: a town that counted for more than it does today, Alessano, a suppressed episcopal see, fiefs passed from family to family, oil worked underground. Of Miggiano and Montesano the open sources say little, and there the story grows shorter. It is a journey for those who read the dates on the stones.
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, and a thread that the sources read support: three of these towns appear in the sources, or are reborn, as casali linked to Lecce. Cavallino, according to the Ministry of Culture's record, rises again as a casale in the County of Lecce; Castri, by gift of Count Tancredi in 1190, and San Pietro in Lama, by gift of King Tancredi at the end of the 12th century, pass to the Church of Lecce. Lizzanello comes in by another route, that of Cosimo De Giorgi, the scientist born here who described, the FAI writes, the Valle della Cupa. The hypothesised theme, “countryside and historic centres”, holds only in part: the historic centres have three ministerial records, the countryside appears only in the Valle della Cupa, described by the FAI, and in the olive trees of Lizzanello. In our proposal it is a three-day journey, for those who read a town by its plan and its dates more than by its monuments.
Three municipalities in the province of Lecce, between the Adriatic and the plain east of the provincial capital. The theme hypothesised at the start, “stone and coast”, holds only halfway: no source read speaks of stone for these places, while the coast is there, and it is the real thread. The pages of the Municipality of Melendugno tell of a sea that for centuries was a threat: Roca destroyed several times by those who came from the water, then dismantled in the 16th century and left by its inhabitants, who moved also to Vernole; watchtowers and fortified masserie linked in a defensive network, according to the Municipality. Melendugno has rich sources; Vernole and Caprarica di Lecce have few, and there the story grows shorter. It is a journey for those who read a territory through its defences, without hurry.