Apulia

Antiquity

Human settlement in Apulia dates back to at least 250,000 years ago, as evidenced by the fossil remains of the Altamura Man, an archaic form of Neanderthal. There are numerous finds from the prehistoric era, including several menhir and dolmen.^[10]

Around the 1st millennium BC, the Iapygians settled in the territory with the tribes of the Daunians, the Peucetians and the Messapians, as well as the populations of the Calabri and the Sallentini (both settled in Salento); later, in the Hellenic era, the Magna Graecia colonies were quite numerous, especially in the southern part of the region, including the city of Taras, now Taranto.^[11]

During the second Samnite war (326–304 BC), the Roman army, in an attempt to provide relief to Lucera, besieged by the Samnites, suffered a serious defeat in the Battle of the Caudine Forks, in 321 BC. Rome soon understood the strategic importance of Apulia (corresponding only to the central-northern part of present-day Apulia, while the Salento Peninsula was known as Calabria in that period), but the occupation of the region, in the third century BC, was not easy, especially for the resistance of Tarentum and Brundisium. In 216 BC in Cannae the Roman army suffered its worst defeat against Hannibal's Carthage.^[12]

The Roman Province of Apulia and Calabria was then established, which also included Irpinia. With the construction of the Appian Way and, in the imperial era, of the Via Traiana along which cities such as Troia, Ordona, Gravina, Canosa, Ruvo and Bitonto prospered. The region occupied leading positions in the production of grain and oil, becoming the largest exporter of olive oil in the East.^[13]

Middle Ages and Renaissance period

At the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Apulia also went through a long period of suffering. Heruli and Ostrogoths invaded the territory, but in the end it became the dominion of the Eastern Roman Empire, from the 6th to the 11th century except for a brief partial occupation of the region by the Emirate of Bari. Bari became the capital of a territory extending up to present-day Basilicata and subjected to the authority of a Catepanate.^[14] With the advent of the Normans in the 11th century, Taranto became the capital of the Principality of Taranto, which extended across the entire Terra di Otranto.^[15]

In 1043 the Normans founded the county of Apulia which in 1059 merged into the vast County of Apulia and Calabria, whose borders progressively extended up to in Principality of Salerno. From 1130 it became part of the Kingdom of Sicily. In the 13th century the name Apulia was used by some authors to indicate the southern part of the Italian peninsula. During the Sicilian domination Apulia achieved great material and civil progress, which reached its peak with Frederick II, who was responsible for the construction of a series of secular and religious buildings, some of high artistic value, including Castel del Monte, near Andria. During this period Foggia became one of his residences. From 1282, following the separation of the island of Sicily from the rest of the south of the peninsula, Apulia was under the rule of the Kingdom of Naples, from that moment the power of the landowners began to take root in the territory.^[16]

Early modern period

From the middle of the 18th century the region of Apulia experienced a period of strong economic prosperity and excellent development of trade and agriculture. Between 1806 and 1815, during the Napoleonic era, provided the modernization of Apulia with the abolition of feudalism and judicial reforms until the return of the Bourbons and the birth of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Liberal movements were formed throughout the region in 1820 with the spread of Freemasonry and Carbonari.^[17][18]

With the Kingdom of Italy established in 1861, Apulia was administratively divided into the provinces of Foggia, Bari and Lecce; to these were added in the twentieth century the provinces of Brindisi and Taranto. In the period following the unification of Italy, various brigand gangs arose, especially in Capitanata and Terra di Bari; among the major exponents are Michele Caruso, Antonio Angelo Del Sambro and Giuseppe Schiavone, the latter a faithful lieutenant of the Lucanian brigand leader Carmine Crocco.^[19]

Modern period

With the progressive decline of the latifundium, the ancient Apulian farms, properties of medium agricultural size, also decayed. During fascism, Apulia was affected by numerous land reclamations in vast areas and, following the post-war agrarian reform, the region enjoyed strong agricultural development.^[20] In the 1970s and 1980s the economy of the region moved from the primary sector to the tertiary one, with notable development coming from the tourism sector.^[21]

Unemployment

The unemployment rate stood at 14.1% in 2020.^[29]

Fishing and aquaculture

The port of Taranto hosts numerous fishing boats. The fleet is mainly made up of about 80 fishing boats, which do not exceed 10 gross tonnage and which practice trawling, while the remaining small-scale fishing boats operate with gillnets. The sea, rich and generous, is populated by dentex, sea bream, glit-head bream, grouper, redfish, mullet, mussels, sea urchin, anchovies, shrimp and squid. Other significant fishing ports are Manfredonia, Trani, Molfetta, Mola di Bari, Monopoli, Castro, and Gallipoli.

Today Taranto is the world's largest producer of farmed mussels: with 1,300 employees, around 30,000 tons of mussels are processed per year. Mussel farming has characterized the city's economy for centuries, making the mussel the gastronomic symbol of Taranto. It is said that the first mussel gardens in La Spezia, Pula, Olbia and Chioggia were established by mussel farmers who emigrated from this city. The workplace of the Taranto mussel farmers is the boat; every detail of the working method has improved over time.

10 m long structures made of wood or metal, called "pali" (piles), are attached to the seabed, to which ropes and nets are then attached, on which the mussels are grown. The mussels farmed here are particularly tasty and valued because they grow in a special environment, a mixture of salt seawater and karst freshwater. These special environmental conditions of the seas of Taranto are ideal not only for the mussels but also for the fish and crustaceans that find food and shelter between the piles. While there are around 18 submarine freshwater springs, called "Citri", in the Mar Piccolo, there is only one large one in the Mar Grande, which is called "Anello di San Cataldo" in honour of the patron saint of the city.

• 
  Dentex
• 
  Sea bream
• 
  Shrimp
• 
  Mussels

Agriculture

Agriculture plays a prominent economic role in Apulia. It is mainly intensive and modern agriculture that allows the region to be among the first in Italy for the production of many products:

• durum wheat which is used to produce pasta
• tomatoes
• grape
• almonds
• olive oil

Vegetable growing (lettuce, artichoke, fennel, cabbage, celery, barattiere, borage, sweet potato, caper, portulaca, broccoli rabe) and horticulture (peach, orange, clementine, lemon, kumquat, fig, pomegranate, persimmon, prickly pear) are also developed.

Viticulture

Vineyards cover 106.715 ha (263.70 acres) in Apulia, which is 1st place among Italian grape-growing regions. But in the production of quality DOC and DOCG wines, Apulia has only ranked 12th of 20 with 297.667 hl. There are four DOCG wines:

• Castel del Monte Bombino Nero
• Castel del Monte Nero di Troia Riserva
• Castel del Monte Rosso Riserva
• Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale

Oliviculture

There are an estimated 50 to 60 million olive trees in Apulia, and the region accounts for 40% of Italy's olive oil production. There are four specific Protected designations of Origin (PDO) covering the whole region.^[30] Olive varieties include: Baresane, Biancolilla, Brandofino (Castiglione), Buscionetto (Biancolilla), Carolea, Cellina di Nardò, Cerasuola (Ogliara), Cerignola (Bella di Cerignola), Cima di Bitonto, Cima di Mola, Coratina,^[31] also grown in Corning, California, a 2018 Gold Medal New York International Olive Oil Competition (NYIOOC) winner,^[32] Frantoio, Garganica, La Minuta, Leccino, Moresca, Nocellara Etnea, Nocellara Messinese, Ogliarola, Ogliarola Barese, Ogliara Messinese, Ottobratica, Peranzana, Rotondella, Santagatese, Saracena, Tonda Iblea, and Verdello (subspecies of San Benedetto).^[33][34]

Tourism

Apulia has many small and picturesque villages, 14 of them have been selected by I Borghi più belli d'Italia (English: The most beautiful Villages of Italy),^[35] a non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic interest,^[36] that was founded on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the National Association of Italian Municipalities.^[37]

Administrative divisions

Apulia is divided into six provinces:

Cuisine

Important locally produced ingredients include olive oil, artichokes, tomatoes, eggplant, asparagus, and various kinds of seafood. Local specialties include the carosello, a variety of muskmelon which is often consumed when unripe. Apulian Protected designation of origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical indication (PGI) products included cheeses, olive oils, fruits and vegetables, and a type of bread.

Typically Apulian pasta shapes are orecchiette, cavatelli, and troccoli. Popular street foods include panzerotti, sgagliozze (fried polenta), popizze (small fried balls of pizza dough that are sometimes also called pettule), rustici (puff pastries stuffed with tomatoes, béchamel sauce, mozzarella, and black pepper), the famous pasticiotto (a flaky shortbread dough filled with custard), and focaccia barese.^[42] A popular snack in Apulia is Taralli.

• 
  Spaghetti con le cozze (with mussels)
• 
  Monacelle (land snail species Cantareus apertus)
• 
  Scapece gallipolina: fried fish preserved in red wine vinegar with bread crumbs and saffron
• 
  Cazzomarro: baked involtini of lamb entrails
• 
  Goat chops
• 
  Lampascioni sott'olio, prepared bulbs of the grape hyacinth Leopoldia comosa preserved in olive oil

Language

As with the other regions of Italy, the national language (since 1861) is Italian. However, because of its long and varied history, other historical languages have been used in this region for centuries. The local languages of northern and central Apulia (roughly the provinces of Bari, Barletta-Andria-Trani, and Foggia as well as the northwestern parts of the Province of Taranto) are the Apulian Southern Italo-Romance dialects, including Bari dialect and Tarantino dialect. In the southern region of Salento, an extreme Southern Italo-Romance language, the Salentino dialect is widely spoken. There is also an Italiot Greek language found in Salento called Griko, which is still spoken by a few thousand Griko people in some areas.^[43] In addition, a rare daughter language of the Franco-Provençal language called Faetar is spoken in the mountain villages of Faeto and Celle di San Vito, in the Province of Foggia. It is sometimes classified as a pair of dialects of Franco-Provençal, Faetar and Cellese.^[44] The Arbëreshë dialect of the Albanian language has been spoken by a small community since refugees settled there in the 16th century.^[45]

Sports

Apulia is home to several national football, water polo, volleyball, basketball and tennis clubs.

Across the top three levels of Italian football, the clubs in Apulia include:

• U.S. Lecce playing in Serie A
• S.S.C. Bari playing in Serie B
• Calcio Foggia 1920 playing in Serie C
• S.S. Audace Cerignola playing in Serie C
• Fidelis Andria 2018 playing in Serie C
• S.S. Monopoli 1966 playing in Serie C
• Virtus Francavilla Calcio playing in Serie C
• Taranto F.C. 1927 playing in Serie C