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BRINDISI’S ANCIENT ORIGINS

Located on a small headland and being in possession of the only safe port of Puglia’s Adriatic coast, Brindisi has become a blossoming centre of maritime communication thanks to the opening of the Suez Canal.

The Anchors Fountain (www.brindisiweb.com)
The Church of Santa Maria del Casale (www.brindisiweb.com)

History

The city has very ancient origins. It might have been founded by the Illirica population and its Latin name of “Brundisium” has traces of the messapian word Brention, raven head probably referring to the shape of the city’s port. The city has forever been in conflict with the neighbouring Taranto; it was occupied by the Romans and not only became an extremely busy port for connections to the Middle East, but also a naval station for the war fleet. It was linked to Rome by the Via Appia and was granted city status after the civil war. It was in the middle of some of the most important episodes of civil wars in 83 B.C. Silla landed here with his army; in ’49 B.C. it represented the road to safety for Pompeo and the republicans overcome by Caesar. During the medieval era it was plundered on several occasions by the Saracens, by Ludwig II and by the Normans, devastated by the plague in 1348 and destroyed by an earthquake in 1456. Under Ferdinand I d’Aragona it went through a more fortunate period, only to be passed into the hands of the Venetians and the Spanish. Its most glorious period was during the accession to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. During the First World War, Brindisi was used as a command headquarters for the lower Adriatic, from which the clearing out of the Serbian army from Albania in 1915 was organised.

The city and its monuments

Among the monuments worthy of note are: Piazza del Duomo, with the Loggia di Balsamo inside, the eighteenth century Palazzo del Seminario and the Cathedral itself with its Romanic origins; the Roman columns, erected to mark the end of Via Appia (only one is intact); the Provincial Archaeological Museum, which is accessed through the Templar Knight portal from the eighteenth century and is made up of beautiful gothic arches and hosts materials found in the area surrounding Brindisi. Amongst the religious monuments we should mention San Giovanni al Sepolcro, a Romanic building commissioned by the Templars on their return from the Holy Land; San Benedetto with its trifore bell tower; Santa Lucia and the church of Cristo from 1230.

The geographical area

Amongst the principal towns in the area there are many centres dedicated to both tourism and agriculture and also Mesagne, a town with ancient origins. It has the church of San Lorenzo, the castle, the Matrice church and the palazzo del Comune (town hall). Ostini is famous for its countryside made up of stretches of olive groves, (located on three hills in between trulli and caves) and for all of its white houses. Francavilla Fontana was already inhabited in Prehistoric times. Fasano, the town of olive groves, orchards and vineyards, is located on the slopes of the Murges, close to the sea. Finally, Oria is remarkable from artistic, literary and scientific point of views due to the Jewish population that have lived there throughout the course of time.