We know of a castle erected in Bari by Roger II, king of Sicily. This castle provided the foundation for the city of Bari, and it stands today at its center.

The castle was a pre-existing Byzantine building to be identified with the actual trapezoidal courtyard, with four corner towers and intermediate towers whose polygonal basis are recognizable on the southern and western sides. It is hard to determine Frederick's contribution but certainly the lunette portal with the sculpted archivolt, the cross-vaulted vestibule with sculpted capitals and corbels, the arcade facing the courtyard are Swabian.

Today the castle, after a long period of decay in which it has been also used as a prison and barracks, is the seat of Superintendent of Monuments of Apulia and it is possible to visit only partially. The actual entrance leads to the area between the sixteenth-century ramparts and the Norman-Swabian walls in which the sculpted portal has been reopened thanks to restorations of this century. The portal bears the imperial symbol in keystone and leads to the hall which is divided into spans supported by corbels and columns with leaf-sculpted capitals on which sculptors like Mele da Stigliano and Finarro da Canosa left their signatures. The following passage leads to the large XVI century courtyard with the remains of Frederick's arcade, the two-wing staircase rebuilt on the same pattern of the original one (whose traces were found during the restorations) and St. Stanislao chapel recently restored. It is important not to forget the Gallery of plaster casts, on the ground floor, which contains a small portion of over 200 plasters representing the most significant episodes of Apulian art from XI to XVII century; these plasters were made between 1899 and 1911 for exhibitions in Turin, Paris and Rome.

In 1530, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as King of Sicily, ceded to the Order of Rhodes the island of Malta. At first, the Order's Maltese dominion, which also included the nearby islands of Gozo and Comino was considered a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily, its Grand Master a vassal. It was for this reason that an annual feudal tax was paid, though it was largely symbolic. It included, for example, a "Maltese falcon." The Order would remain a military dependency of the Kingdom of Sicily until 1798, though, like the feudal tax rendered to the King, this was to be largely symbolic in actual practice during the centuries to follow. Pope Clement VII sanctioned this act in with a Bull of 7 May 1530, and the Order established its grand magistry on the island later in the year. The Order was also granted Tripoli, which it relinquished in 1551.

Thus did the Order become known as the "Order of Malta." In deference to its origins in the Holy City, it was known as the Hierosolymitan Order of Malta well into the twentieth century. Adopting a new appellation was simple enough; developing this harsh land would be more difficult. Despite its obvious strategic importance, Malta was, for the most part, a hilly and deforested island having few natural resources other than olive groves, wheat fields and good fishing waters. It was, and is, similar to Pantelleria, Lampedusa and some parts of Sicily. The knights set about developing the islands they had been granted.

Not surprisingly, hospitals were among the first projects to be undertaken on Malta, where French soon supplanted Italian as the official language (though the native inhabitants continued to speak Maltese, a language related to Sicilian). The knights also constructed fortresses, watch towers and, naturally, churches. Its acquisition of Malta signalled the beginning of the Order's renewed naval activity. Maritime trade greatly developed; indeed it became a primary means of economic support.

Because such trade was increasingly hindered by marauding corsairs, the knights were to become better known for bringing the sea crusade to the western Mediterranean. In this they were supported by sympathetic sovereigns and new orders of chivalry, most notably the Piedmontese Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and, in 1561, the Tuscan Order of Saint Stephen. Since Malta occupied a strategic position between the Christian and Muslim worlds, the Order of Malta emerged as the most important obstacle to Islam's encroachment into the heart of Christendom. It must be said, however, that the initial goals of the grand masters and the Italian princes were more commercial than ideological, as the pirates' activities seriously threatened trade.

Serious Ottoman assaults occurred between 1551 and 1644. The most famous, the Great Siege, took place in 1565. An attacking Turkish force of 180 warships carrying almost 30,000 men was repelled by 600 knights and some 6000 soldiers and volunteers led by the intrepid Grand Master Jean de la Valette. Assistance eventually arrived from Europe. Only about 15,000 attackers survived to return to Turkey, while very few of the defenders went uninjured.

The Siege of Malta was, in the first instance, a defensive battle, and certainly a bloody one. The knights would encounter Muslim forces again at the Battle of Lepanto, in 1571. Knights of Malta fought at the Siege of Candia (in Crete) in 1668, and at the Conquest of Belgrade in 1689. With the defeat, at least for the time being, of Christendom's most serious foes, the Order's attention began to shift to the philosophical plain embodied by the Counter Reformation.

The ancient center of Salento, situated on the adriatic coast. Of probable Greek origins, it carried out a role of primary importance under the Bizantini, becoming the capoluogo of the Salento. It decayed slowly until to being stormed by the Turks in the 1480, only to be freed from them in the successive year. The ancient center, has conserved medieval the viario woven one. The castle was built up and strengthened near the end of the fourteenth century and the course of the following century.

An interesting place, in the heart of the old citizen, is the small basilica bizantina of St. Peter, erected around the year one-thousand. The inside to three navate is decorated from paintings to coolness of various ages.

The CATHEDRAL, imposing example of the pugliese Romanesque architecture, was built up in 1080-88. On the facade, a rosone in Arabic shapes gotico- of XV the century it surpasses the seicentesco portale. The strict inside, to three navate, has pregevole seicentesco ceiling to cassettoni in golden wood and a pavimentale mosaic of the 1165. In the nail head of the Martyrdoms nearly six hundred victims of the eccidio are conserved boneses perpetrated from the Turks. Under the apse the width is found cripta, supported from umerose columns, with rests of frescoes.

Terra Di Lavoro