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Follow Frederick II’s steps among charming medieval villages and castles. However, the history of this land dates back to a more distant past. The megalithic underground structures of Trinitapoli and San Ferdinando, or the dolmens of Bisceglie and Corato are tokens of archaic civilisations and Canosa, the main city of the region during the Imperial age, maintains the beauty of a glorious past which can be still be traced today.
Civilisation developed along the only river of Puglia in the Ofanto valley. The first tokens date back to the bronze age, followed by the archaic Greek and Latin settlements, until the Romanesque period. The presence of Frederick II is witnessed everywhere, and in the 16th century Barletta saw the emergence of national pride through the victory over the French knights during the famous "challenge".

Frederick’s coast: Barletta, Trani, Bisceglie were important landing sites during the journey to the Holy Land and still host ancient towers to monitor a rich a fruitful coast. The coast of Imperial Puglia exceeds 40 km in length and is characterised by very interesting swamps in terms of the passage of dozens of thousands of migrating birds spending the Winter near the famous Salt works of Margherita di Savoia. ↑Top

Minervino Murge (fonte Visual Puglia)

The sight of Minervino is beautiful from there, an unusual and unforgettable view.  From that vantage point it is possible to see how you are at the extreme outcrop of the crest of the High Murgia, rather than on the “summit” of something.  The high Murgia juts out over the territory with its extreme point, not to look, but to defend itself from peril.  It could be compared to a nest on a branch.  And inside the city?  The ancient and complex walls made of square and circular towers have been destroyed (only one has survived, on Vico V Scesciola).  What remains is the nucleus of a city that is unexpectedly beautiful and noble.  The buildings and the churches are architectural elements of value, solid and representative, almost as if it were a castle-city and its rich facades were doors to secret and ornate rooms.  It is a city that was a rich, undivided feudal property (owned by the Del Tufo, Carafa and Pignatelli families before the Tagliavilla at the beginning of the 1800's).  It later underwent a progressive impoverishment, although it preserved a certain severe character over time.  Constrained by its physical and orographic status (a figure of castling) it was, therefore, not routed by conflicts, nor by revolutionary ferment nor by the frenzy of demolition and urban redesign and, as a result, not even by the disorder of uncontrolled expansion.  Minervino preserves its own special elegance and a compactness, despite the fact that it bears the aesthetic features of many different centuries, above all of the 1600's and 1700's, the golden centuries in its development.

Minervino has wisely sewn its modernisation into the fabric of this history, conserving the “protective” and unitary character of its centre and equipping itself with civic tools that maintain its integrity while opening it, without reservation, to modern management techniques.  A winning choice that has fit the characteristic image of this city into the wider naturalistic and cultural panorama of the High Murgia, through the creation of solid inter-city relationships. ↑Top

Trani (fonte:  Visual Puglia )

Trani is situated to the north of Bari, near to Castel del Monte and as planned, by 2008 it will form a new province together with Andria and Barletta.
Legend would have it that the city was founded by Tirreno, the son of Diomede, yet the first historical traces of the city have come from the Third Century A.D. Historical documentation, on the other hand, dates back to the IX Century, under Longobard rule.
Then, when Trani was under Aragon rule, it experienced a period of significant commercial expansion, aiding in its recovery from the dark period following Angevin rule. It was, however, under Spanish rule that Trani became the most important political-administrative centre of all of Southern Italy and as such was granted the title of main town in the region. This title was later revoked in favour of Bari by Murat and Bonaparte.
Trani is divided into three quarters: the old town characterised by the incredible conservation of the buildings; the Nineteenth-Century quarter characterised by noble villas and the modern quarter.The cathedral stands out for being a double church, a solution that was chosen after finding the relics of Saint Nicholas the Pilgrim, stored in the crypt of the church. On that occasion, instead of connecting the room to the new aisles, it was decided to open an under-body in front of it, as wide as the nave, that was divided by colonnades to give the building the appearance of a basilica. The upper church, completed in the thirteenth century, is also laid out like a basilica: it is divided into one nave and two aisles, with a high transept and semicircular apses, so slender they make it look like a Nordic building. The interior is divided into twin pillars that hold cross vaults in the aisles and wooden trusses in the nave, where the women’s galleries open up, architectural solutions that had already been adopted in the late XII century in the Ill de France and some crusade buildings in the Holy Land. The façade, in the Pisan style, boasts a rose window, surrounded by protruding animals, and the plastic decoration of the portal.

Trani castle is one of the most interesting examples of those buildings known as Frederican castles, a real circuit of castles built by Frederick II of Swabia.
The castle rises above the sea to defend its city and is famous for being chosen by Manfred, son of Frederick II of Swabia, as the location of his wedding celebrations to Helen of Epirus.
We recommend you visit the castle, in particular during the summer period when the historical re-enactment takes place of Manfred’s wedding. ↑Top

Andria (fonte:  Visual Puglia )

Andria si trova a dieci chilometri dal mare. Secondo alcuni storici fu fondata da Diomede, che ne tracciò i confini e la chiamò Andros. Secondo altri, invece, la sua fondazione risale all’opera di evangelizzazione nella regione da parte di Sant’Andrea e di San Pietro. In ogni caso, tutti concordano nell’individuare nella caduta dell’Impero romano d’Occidente un forte impulso all’urbanizzazione della città. Dal 1064 Pietro I Normanno raccolse gli abitanti istituendo una “civitas”  fortificata con una cinta muraria e 12 torri di guardia. All’inizio del 1200 Andria divenne ghibellina, fedele a Federico II di Svevia. Nel 1350 e nel 1370 subì due assedi: il primo, particolarmente dannoso, ad opera dei mercenari tedeschi. Nel 1487 la città passò sotto il dominio degli Aragonesi, conoscendo un periodo denso di battaglie.

Successivamente iniziò la lunga reggenza dei Carafa. Alla fine del 1700 Andria divenne città Regia e nel 1806 passò sotto il governo di Giuseppe Bonaparte ed in seguito di Murat. La città si distinse anche per la sua partecipazione all’impresa di Garibaldi, fornendo circa cento uomini all’esercito dei mille.↑Top

Castel del Monte: non si può trascurare la visita a questo castello voluto e commissionato dall'imperatore Federico II e presumibilmente completato intorno al 1240. Per la sua forma e la sua funzione Castel del Monte si differenzia in modo significativo dagli altri castelli che si possono visitare in Puglia. La forma dell'ottagono sul quale è strutturato l'intero edificio, da un lato rappresenta uno schema architettonico rigoroso e dall'altro richiama aspetti (probabilmente) simbolici, che rendono la visita ancor più interessante. Non è da escludere, inoltre, che la costruzione del castello, i cui lavori di progettazione sono stati direttamente seguiti dall'imperatore, sia stata ispirata da altre costruzioni che lo stesso Federico II aveva visto durante la sesta crociata. ↑Top