Ostuni (Stune in Ostuni dialect) is an Italian town of 31 083 inhabitants in the province of Brindisi in Apulia. Known tourist center, it is also known as the white city because of its characteristic historic center which in the past was entirely painted with white lime.
It is not easy to find your way around Ostuni. The streets of the
historic center, where there are white houses, have an irregular
pattern. Indeed, one could say that they are a real labyrinth of
streets, alleys and stairs. In any case, the best reference is to go up.
The main square with the cathedral is located at the highest point.
The winding cathedral street connects the older neighborhood with
the cathedral going down to Piazza della Libertà where the town hall and
the column of Sant'Oronzo are located. Viale Oronzo Quaranta is a
beautiful panoramic road that allows you to see the fortress of the
historic center and the panorama all the way to the sea.
By plane
The nearest airport is Brindisi, about 40km away. Bari
airport is about 90km away.
By car
From Fasano or Carovigno
via the SS16.
From Monopoli or Bari via the SS379, take the exit
for Ostuni and take the SP20 until entering the city.
From Ceglie
Messapica via the SP22.
From Cisternino via the SP17.
From
Martina Franca via the SP62 which then becomes SP14.
From
Francavilla Fontana via the SP28.
From San Michele Salentino via
the SP29.
On boat
4 Tourist port of Villanova, Marina di
Ostuni. This port is dedicated to small private boats.
On the
train
5 Ostuni station. The station connects with Bari and Lecce. In
summer, the Municipality of Ostuni provides a shuttle bus service from
the station which, in addition to connecting Villanova, runs along part
of the Ostuni coast.
The historic center is closed to traffic.
By taxi
In the
narrow streets of the historic center there are Piaggio Ape vehicles
transformed to transport tourists. They are an excellent way to avoid
climbing hills and at the same time to visit the streets.
By car
Most of the street parking is paid with rates ranging from €0.52/h to
€1.20/h (Jul 2020).
6 Foro Boario car park, Via Peppino Orlando,
1. €2.00 for the first 4 hours, max €4.00 (Jul 2020). from 15 June to 15
September Mon-Sun 9:00-02:00. With capacity of 300 seats, without trees.
Secure parking.
7 Parking Genco Area. €2.00 the first 4 hours, max
€4.00 (Jul 2020). from 15 June to 15 September Mon-Sun 9:00-02:00.
Secure parking.
8 Parking Via Pinto, via G. Pinto. €0.52/h for cars
and €0.90/ for motorhomes, 16 September - 14 June Mon-Sun 8:00-13:00 and
15:00-21:00. €0.52/h for cars and €0.90/for motorhomes, 15 June-15
September, Mon-Sun 9:00-21:00. €1.20/h for cars and €2.25/for
motorhomes, Mon-Sun 9pm-02am (Jul 2020). Unattended car park with 120
spaces.
9 Specchia car park, Via Antonio Specchia. €0.52/h for cars
and €0.90/ for motorhomes, 16 September - 14 June Mon-Sun 8:00-13:00 and
15:00-21:00. €0.52/h for cars and €0.90/for motorhomes, 15 June-15
September, Mon-Sun 9:00-21:00. €1.20/h for cars and €2.25/for
motorhomes, Mon-Sun 9pm-02am (Jul 2020). With parking meter.
The old city with alleys and streets and all whitewashed houses.
1 Co-Cathedral of Ostuni (Co-Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in
Cielo), Piazza Beato Giovanni Paolo II (located at the top of the
highest hill in the city). The construction was begun in 1435 and
completed between 1470 and 1495. It has a beautiful, characteristic
facade of late Gothic forms, divided into three parts by pilasters. The
central part ends with a tympanum formed by two inflected arches, the
wings with two half lunettes; the tympanum and lunettes have a beautiful
Gothic crown, which extends along the sides and around the transept, of
small trefoil arches with a serrated profile on sculpted brackets. The
façade is opened by three elegant ogival portals (in the lunette of the
middle one, a bas-relief depicting the Madonna and Child in glory) each
surmounted by a rose, of which the central one has 24 rays, very notable
for its size and richness of carvings. Other beautiful roses are in the
transept heads. The interior, in the shape of a Latin cross with three
naves on columns, is redone in airy and solemn eighteenth-century forms,
with a painted flat ceiling and beautiful baroque chapels (near the
entrance, column from the original construction). At the end of the left
nave is a wooden altar from 1734 with busts of saints Oronzo, Biagio and
Agostino. In the apse, richly carved walnut choir (17th century). In the
right nave, the tomb of Bishop Filo (1720) and in the last chapel there
was a Madonna with Child and Saints, by Jacopo Palma the Younger
(stolen). The church's rose window is the second largest in Europe.
2
Carmelite Monastery, ☎ +39 0831 301293. The eighteenth-century monastery
to which is annexed the Lecce Baroque church of San Vito (also known as
Santa Maria Maddalena), from 1750-1752, with a sumptuous curvilinear
façade with broken gable, rich large window central and dome with
polychrome tiles. Inside, noteworthy are the 17th century wooden pulpit,
the funerary monument of Cono Luchino Del Verme (1747) and the sumptuous
baroque altars by Francesco Morgese (1763), whose canvases, the work of
Domenico Lettieri (1760) are preserved in the adjacent Museum of
Preclassic Civilizations of the Southern Murgia.
3 Museum of
preclassical civilizations of southern Murgia, Via Cattedrale, 15, ☎ +39
0831 336383. Full price €5, reduced price €3 (Jul 2020). Mon-Fri
10am-2pm, Sat-Sun 10am-7pm. The museum essentially collects finds dating
back to the prehistoric and Messapian periods. Initially born with the
archaeological discoveries that occurred only in the Ostuni countryside,
over time it has hosted finds from almost the entire southern Murge
area. Among the most interesting archaeological finds that can be
admired is the cast of the Woman of Ostuni, a pregnant woman with a
fetus dating back to around 27,000 years ago.
4 church of San Giacomo
di Compostela (Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian), Via Bixio
Continelli. Erected in 1423; of the original construction it retains the
portal architrave and the sculpted ogival arch above the façade, and an
ornate window in the apse.
5 Church of San Francesco d'Assisi, Corso
Giuseppe Mazzini, 1. Of medieval foundation, but with a façade from
1882: the eighteenth-century interior preserves on the counter-façade
the painting Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law (school of Luca
Giordano), the statues wooden statues of the Immaculate Conception by
Giacomo Colombo (1719) and of Sant'Agostino (18th century) and the bust
of San Giuseppe with the Child Jesus (17th century Neapolitan school)
and of San Giuseppe.
6 Church of the Holy Spirit, Via Roma. Church
from 1637 with a beautiful Renaissance portal with bas-reliefs
attributable to the 15th century, still in late Gothic style: in the
lunette, Dormitio Virginis; in the tympanum, Coronation of Mary and
Annunciation. Inside, Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth, Anna and
Joachim, painted by Fra Giacomo da San Vito.
7 Church of Santa Maria
della Stella, Via Clemente Leonardo, 123. Previously it was called Santa
Maria della Porticella, because there was a small Angevin-era gate
leading to the city. The facade has a portal surmounted by the statue of
the Madonna della Stella. Inside there is a wooden altar, and in the
niche stands the statue of the Madonna della Stella.
8 Church of the
Capuchins (Santa Maria degli Angeli), Via Monsignor Mindelli, ☎ +39 0831
339627. Church from 1585, in which a beautiful canvas from the 17th
century Neapolitan school is preserved.
9 Madonna della Grata Church,
Via Presidente Cucci, 67.
10 Church of Maria Santissima Annunziata,
Via Ludovico Pepe, ☎ +390831332561. Built in 1196 and transformed into
Baroque style by the Reformed friars in 1668; inside, note a chapel in
the right nave. with cross frescoed in the 16th century (Doctors of the
Church); sixteenth-century wooden choir with bas-relief panels
(Annunciation and Saints Francis and Anthony). The Deposition by Paolo
Veronese (1570), stolen in October 1975, was recovered in March 1977;
the Annunciation in the main altar is by Fra Giacomo da San Vito; the
Nativity of Mary is attributed to Corrado Giaquinto. In the sacristy,
Last Supper by Barnaba Zizzi.
11 Church of San Vito martyr, Via
Cattedrale, 42.
12 Church of Santa Maria la Nova, SS16, ☎
+390831336383. Built in 1561, with an ogival portal, an oculus and
crowning with arches, it stands at the entrance to a natural cave, with
traces of frescoes from the 12th-15th century (Christ, the Virgin, Saint
John the Baptist).
13 Tobacco Tannery, Contrada Rosara. Built in the
1920s, it was a building of considerable importance as it housed all the
tobacco necessary for the creation of cigarettes for the population.
Inside you can see the presence of the goods lift, useful for
transporting goods from one floor to another. In the mid-1960s, an
employee's daughter was accidentally crushed by the freight elevator.
The building has since been abandoned.
14 Palazzo San Francesco (Town
Hall), Piazza della Libertà, 1 (Next to the church of San Francesco).
Aragonese walls, viale Oronzo Quaranta. Which surround the old city:
visible for long stretches, they are strengthened by circular towers.
15 Porta di San Demetrio, Via Stefano Trinchera, 18.
Porta Nova.
Zevallos ducal palace.
16 Palazzo Siccoda, Via Cattedrale, 35.
17
Diocesan Museum (Bishop's Palace), Piazza Beato Giovanni Paolo II, 28,
info@museodiocesanoostuni.it. Mon-Sun: 1 Jun – 30 Sep 10:00 – 24:00,
Wed-Fri 1 Oct – 31 May 10:00 – 13:00.
18 Scoppa Arc. It connects the
bishop's palace with the seminary.
Castello, vico Castello. There are
few remains of the castle built in 1148 by Goffredo III, and demolished
in 1559 to make room for the episcope.
19 Palazzo Falgheri, Via
Alfonso Giovine, 27. The portal of the palace
20 Palazzo
Ghionda-Pomes and Casa Molendino, via F. Bax 5-7. The portal of the
palace
21 Palazzo Bisantizzi, via A. Petrarolo 34-36. The rococo
portal.
22 Column of Sant'Oronzo, Freedom Square. The symbolic
monument of Ostuni, 20.75 m high, by Giuseppe Greco (1771), with
exuberant baroque decoration: at half height the statues of Saints
Biagio, Irene, Gaetano and Lucia.
The territory of Ostuni was already frequented in the Middle
Paleolithic (50,000-40,000 years ago) then there was the Neanderthal
hunter. The hilly area, home to numerous caves, offered perfect
natural shelters for primitive human communities.
In the
Upper Paleolithic the traces of human garrisons become more
consistent: the excavations carried out have allowed the discovery
of bone and ceramic finds. However, the most striking testimony
remains the discovery of the skeleton of the "woman of Ostuni", a
woman of about 20 years of age close to giving birth, and of her
fetus, discovered by Prof. Donato Coppola of the Aldo Moro
University of Bari in 1991. The body, placed in a large hole, is in
a contracted position, with the head covered by a sort of cap made
up of hundreds of small shells. The woman's belonging to a group of
hunters is documented by the remains of the trousseau, that is
flints and teeth of a primitive horse and ox. The burial, called
Ostuni 1º, is unique in the world: dating back to about 28,000 years
ago (calibrated radiocarbon dating), it is located in the cave of
Santa Maria di Agnano, near the homonymous farm. A cast of this
burial can be examined at the "Museum of Preclassical Civilizations
of the Southern Murgia", in the former convent of Monacelle, in the
historic center of Ostuni.
The settlements of Lamaforca and
San Biagio belong to the Neolithic period, while finds from the
Bronze Age have been found in excavations in the Lama Morelli area.
The first city nucleus was founded by the Messapi, an ancient
Illyrian or Anatolian population who settled in Salento in the 7th
century BC; the Messapi were skilled builders of roads and cities
and chose the location for the city on top of a hill with very steep
walls (murex in Latin, from which the term Murgia comes precisely)
very interesting from a strategic point of view. Recent excavations
near the Boarium forum (the area facing the medieval walls), have
allowed the discovery of tombs of the IV - II century BC, which
document the presence of an inhabited center, whose extension went
from the sides of the hill to the plain sloping towards the sea.
In the third century BC Salento was also conquered by the Romans
and with it the city. The sources say very little about the period,
probable traces remain in some farms, built on the foundations of
ancient villas. Little is also known about the etymology of the word
Ostuni: it probably derives from the eponymous hero Sturnoi,
companion of Diomede, who would have founded it after the Trojan
War; later the Romans called it "Sturninum". However, the term could
be mediated from the Messapian or more probably from the Greek ἄστυ
νέον (ástu néon, in which ástu = fortified citadel, néon = new).
With the disintegration of the Western Empire, Ostuni, like the
rest of Italy, was crossed by Ostrogoths, Lombards, Saracens and
strenuously defended by the imperial power exercised by the
Byzantines. During the Byzantine period, in 876 it became a diocese
and gave refuge to the Basilian monks from Syria and Egypt;
threatened by Arab expansion, but above all by iconoclasm, the monks
took refuge in the same caves that had given refuge to prehistoric
men. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Normans
conquered the Byzantine settlements in Puglia uniting them under the
county of Puglia established Roberto il Guiscardo and then becoming
the Duchy of Puglia. The Normans also intensified the cultivation of
the olive tree and established the city limits with precision. In
the twelfth century Goffredo III, count of Lecce and official of
King Roger II of Sicily, with military jurisdiction over the Terra
d'Otranto, built a castle on the top of the highest hill in Ostuni;
today of that imposing and well fortified construction, only a
turret and the garden (Zurlo Garden) remain. The Ostuni fiefdom is
of considerable military importance, so much so as to provide the
Norman kingdom with twelve Knights, some of which are extra moenia.
Ostuni is integrated into the large territory of the Norman county
of Lecce and the Principality of Taranto. With the Swabians Ostuni
developed considerably. Frederick II of Swabia intended to free
Ostuni from its feudal bonds and take the city under his direct and
particular protection by making its castle together with those of
Oria, Taranto and Brindisi the pivot of the imperial defense in
Apulia and making it exempt from taxes and official controls .
Furthermore, the inhabitants of Villanova and Carovigno were
required to maintain the castle of Ostuni, one of the Castra exempta
of the Kingdom of Sicily, in fact in the 12th century the port
system of the Adriatic area under the authority of Ostuni was
enlarged by the development of the small Petrolla, today Villa
Novaa. Index of the expansion on the Adriatic of Ostuni. In 1182
Tancredi, Count of Lecce and lord of Ostuni, granted the bishop and
the citizens of Ostuni to found a center near San Nicola di Petrolla
and to populate it. It is also granted a mill and an oven, reserving
the right to administer justice there.
The center is found on
the way back from the third crusade of Philip II Augustus, king of
France in 1191 et recedens, inde transitum fecit .. per villam que
dicitur la Petrolle.
It was Emperor Frederick II of Swabia
who gave the greatest driving force for the development of the
farmhouse. On 9 October 1239 Frederick II orders Andrea di
Acquaviva, executioner of Terra d'Otranto to verify why his
predecessor Filippo di Maremonte was unable to repopulate Petrolla
despite his order. On 29 February 1240 he renews the order to the
same executioner and requests that a complete report be sent to
cameram nostram. Punctually received on 6 April 1240.
Ostuni
opened up to trade with the Angevins, who built new fortifications
for the city and re-founded, on the ruins of the ancient Petrolla,
the port of Villanova (the coastal fraction of the town).
The
very particular conurbation of the medieval village, with the houses
leaning against each other and the presence of domus palatiate on
several floors, dates back to this historical period and is
explained both by defensive needs and by wanting to take full
advantage of all the space in width and height. available within the
walls.
Ostuni was surrounded by new walls with circular
towers in the Aragonese period: four doors were opened, of which
today only Porta Nova dating back to the 12th century and rebuilt in
the 15th century and Porta San Demetrio from the 13th century
remain.
From the Renaissance to the Risorgimento
Between
the end of the fifteenth and the first decades of the sixteenth
century, the leading exponents of the Jewish community of Ostuni
distinguished themselves in the trade of textile products. The
community as a whole was one of the most prosperous in the Land of
Otranto and was not exempt from persecution by Christians. In 1506
Ostuni passed to the Duchy of Bari of Isabella d'Aragona and her
daughter Bona Sforza: under the Spanish dominion the golden age of
the city began, both from an economic and cultural point of view.
The dukes granted Ostuni honors and privileges, strengthened the
fortifications of the city walls and endowed the coast with the
Pozzella (now in ruins) and San Leonardo towers. The Renaissance
period also corresponds to the maximum urban development of the
city: the number of inhabitants now reaches 17,000. Numerous new
buildings are added to the medieval layout of the historic center.
But in the seventeenth century a phase of decline began: in fact
in 1639 Philip IV of Habsburg, in the face of debts for the Thirty
Years' War, sold Ostuni to the Zevallos, a family of merchants who
treated the city as a personal fiefdom: the population also
collapsed below 10,000 inhabitants. It was during this historical
period that the plague raged in the area, while sparing Ostuni
itself: this was because the use of whitewashing houses with lime,
as a natural disinfectant, was widespread. This practice not only
blocked the contagion, but, which continued over time, still makes
the White City so peculiar after centuries.
With the Bourbons
the city flourished again. Ostuni expanded towards the nearby hills
of Casale, Cappuccini, Sant'Antonio and Molino a Vento. The center
of city life moved from Piazza del Moro to today's Piazza Libertà,
where the Town Hall is located today (and once the seat of the
Franciscan Convent). It was in this square that Giuseppe Greco, in
1771, erected the column in honor of Sant'Oronzo, who according to
popular tradition had preserved the city from the contagion of the
plague.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the
wake of the ideals of the Enlightenment, Ostuni was also crossed by
insurrectional riots: a club of Giovine Italia and a Carbonara
resale were founded. During these uprisings Ostuni was the first
city in Puglia to raise the tricolor.
From
the second post-war period to now, alongside the development of
agriculture and the related processing industry (olive oil, almonds,
wine), the city has become a renowned tourist destination, managing
to enhance its cultural, historical and architectural. Numerous
tourist villages, such as Rosa Marina, of international importance,
have sprung up on the coast, one of the cleanest on the Apulian
coast. In 2006 the Regional Natural Park of Coastal Dunes from Torre
Canne to Torre San Leonardo was established on the coast bordering
the municipality of Fasano, a protected area of high naturalistic
and landscape interest.
The most peculiar feature of the old
town, which fascinated tourists so much, was the whitewashing of the
houses up to the roofs. The use, attested since the Middle Ages,
derives not only from the easy availability of lime as a raw
material, but from the need to ensure greater brightness in the
narrow streets and environments of medieval plant, given by both
direct and reflected light. As already mentioned, this custom also
played an important role historically in the seventeenth century,
when lime whitewashing was the only way to prevent the plague from
spreading in the town and the contagion increased until it was
destroyed.
This practice, now in decline so much that the
mayor had to issue an ordinance to make it come back into vogue,
meant that Ostuni was called the White City or City Crib, and it was
a feature that made it recognizable and unforgettable to visitors.
"Ostuni is the panoramic city par
excellence, every house is a belvedere, every trattoria belongs to
the Bellavista, at every window there is a poet who gazes at the
plain below the olive trees that change color at all winds [...] In
Ostuni the houses they are white, of milk and lime, they are white
to the point of hurting the eyes, the walls, the windows, the doors,
the stairs are white, everything is improbably white. [...] You go
to Ostuni to understand what it means to be sheltered from the sun
[...] to stop desiring novels, to stop thinking about distant
journeys, here is the charm of all the cities of the South Seas,
here there's the equator close at hand. "
(Ettore Della Giovanna)
Ostuni stands on three hills at a height of 218 meters above sea
level. It is located 8 km from the Adriatic coast. The Murgia, on
whose south-eastern offshoots the city is located, is a karst area
consisting essentially of Cretaceous limestone. It is therefore a
rather arid area without streams: in their place the so-called
"lame", seasonal torrential beds, with shallow furrows and steep
walls. Another geological feature of the area are the "ravines",
karst ravines.
The most important economic activities are
tourism and agriculture (especially olive trees and vines).
Important and numerous are the presence of structures called
"masserie", or ancient fortified farms present both in the Ostuni
forest and in the marina, where the agricultural activities of the
large landowners took place.
Ostuni has a purely Mediterranean climate, typical of the areas of the extreme north of Salento and of the lower Murgia; however, it has continental features. Winters are relatively rigid with temperatures that can drop even a few degrees below zero on the coldest days, and particularly hot summers with values that can reach + 40 ° on the hottest days.