TERRITORY
THE LAND OF I PRODOTTI DI MAMMA NATURA
CASTEL FIORENTINO
Fiorentino built-up area, ancient episcopal seat erected in the countryside of Torremaggiore , 9 kilometers south of the city , on the west side of a hill named of the Sterparone ( interfluviale spur defined by Bufala Canal and Canaletto). Fiorentino that was built ex – nihilo , between 1018 and 1023 by the high Byzantine official (called Catapano) Basilio Baiohannes, with Troy, Civitate , Dragonara , and so on, rose on an important artery that from Teanum Apulum lead to Luceria. The city was integrated in the Apulia northern border strategic system – defense, in order to face the enemy attacks of the Byzantine Empire.
Emperor Federico II of Svevia died there, on December 1250, “apud portam ferream sub floras”. Once that the city was destroyed, in October 1255, during the violent struggles between the papacy and the House of Svevia, the majority of survivors took refuge in Torremaggiore, even if in a gradual and not immediate way. Life in Fiorentino never started again, so that the city does not appear in the early 1300’s focatica taxation imposed by the Angioini.
The progress archaeological excavations of the abandoned place have unearthed the Federico ” domus” with the clear signs of the destructions and remakes of the Angioina age. The cathedral, dedicated to St. Michele Arcangelo, object of a recent research by the Superintendence to Goods AAAS of Apulia , dominated in the south- west of the city , with the facade facing the magna hall . It is possible that the medieval sculptures reused as artistic-urban furniture for the mother church of St. Nicola and for houses of the oldest part of Torremaggiore, known as “Codachio”, come in large part from them.
THE CASTEL OF TORREMAGGIORE
So, the origin of Torremaggiore is dated back to the year 1000, when the farmhouse named “Terra Maggiore”, was subjugated to the nearby Benedictine Abbey of St. Pietro. The documents we received in memory are addressed to the Abbot , real feudal lord, including the important seal of Pope Onorio III of 1216 , which confirms and enumerates all the vast estates and privileges granted to the mentioned monastery, already recognised with praeceptum by the Byzantine Catapano Boiohannes in 1018 , the Norman Roberto the Guiscardo in 1067 and by the King of Sicily, Ruggero II of Altavilla, in 1134. The violent struggles, which have broken out after the Federico II’s death, among his descendants and the Papacy, had as a consequence the destruction of Fiorentino and Dragonara by the papal soldiers and exiles Guelfi. Therefore, in the second half of the thirteenth century, Torremaggiore has been repopulated by the refugees of those mentioned cities, that settled at the shadow of St. Pietro’s Abbey, close to the norman-swabian Castrum, now included in the Ducal Castle. With Federico II, during the Swabian period, the different military constructions were deployed according to the natural contour lines which defined the territorial surveillance network that had as central defensive the Imperial Palace in Foggia, peripherally Deliceto’s fortresses, the tower of Bovino , the bulwark of Troia , Fiorentino , Dragonara Montecorvino , Torremaggiore, Monterotaro, Castelpagano , Apricena , S.Nicandro Garganico Castelpagano , Tertiveri’s tower , and the sighting towers deployed along the Gargano promontory. The Federician architecture was characterized by the typology of residence rather than of fortress, so the sumptuousness was often showed off also in the country Solaciorum ( Apricena , Lucera and so on) while, the residence in Foggia, in which Federico II exercised the Imperial Power, was gorgeous. The general economy of the territory, facing to the changes and new buildings erected by the emperor, had negative consequences: so the Emperor decided to recover the capital through the removal to the religious orders, of the monasteries and abbeys. Among those there was the Terra Maggiore or Torremaggiore one.
