Apulia

History

In ancient times, only the northern part of the region took the name of Apulia, while the southern peninsula was known as Calabria, a name later used to designate the point of the Italian boot.

One of the richest regions in Italy for archeological finds, the region has been inhabited since the 1st millennium BC by several Illyrian and Italic peoples.

Later, the Greeks conquered the area of Taranto and the Salento, so that in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, the greek settlement at Taras (now Taranto) was one of the most important cultural centers for the production of ceramics.

The Romans conquered the region during the wars against the Samnites and against Pirro in the fourth and third centuries BC, and made it the most important region for growing grain and oil production, so it that was the biggest exporter to the eastern provinces.

After the fall of Rome, Apulia was dominated, in order, by the Goths, Lombards, and from the sixth century by the Byzantines. Bari became the capital of a province that extended to modern Basilicata, under the government of a catepan (governor), hence the name of the district Capitanata in Bari.

From the seventh to eleventh century the region remained under Byzantine rule, and then pass under the control of the Normans, who conquered the region with relative ease.

Robert the Guiscard set up the duchy of Apulia in 1059, establishing the control center in Melfi. Only with the Norman conquest of Sicily at the end of XI century, Palermo replaced Melfi as the center of Norman power, making of Puglia a mere province, of the Kingdom of Sicily before, and of the Kingdom of Naples then.

Since the end of the twelfth until the first half of the thirteenth century, Apulia was one of the favorite residences of the Hohenstaufen emperors, notably Frederick II who built the famous Castel del Monte, with its history rich of magic and mystery.

With the fall of Manfred, Puglia came under the Angevin and Aragonese domination and was divided into several barons in the hands of a small number of powerful landowners. This form of feudalism was abolished only during the brief French rule (1806-1815) which also led to the reform of the judiciary system.

The liberation movements began to spread since 1820, but only in 1861 with the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the region became part of the Kingdom of Italy.