The ma.s.sive remnants of the Messapians' double walls, five miles in circ.u.mference, are often over fifteen feet thick and some-times nearly twenty high. They were built during the fifth century BC as a defence against the Tarantines. Almost as striking are the dozens of rectangular graves carved out of the rock, and the elaborate chamber tombs that contain frescoes and have rafters painted on their ceilings. A couplet in the Aeneid (Book VI) gives us some idea of the after-life that they hoped to live in such tombs: They lie below, on golden beds displayed; And genial feasts with regal pomp are made...

The Messapians spoke an extinct Indo-European tongue, probably akin to modern Albanian, which was written in a script derived from Greek. The language ceased to be spoken shortly after the birth of Christ, but its intonation lingers in the stressed first syllable of place-names such as Taranto, Otranto and Brindisi.

"There is a fine palazzo, which belonged to the Princes of Francavilla", Mrs. Ross noted, when she could spare the time from inspecting the Messapian remains. Begun in 1719 by Prince Michele II, with its long balcony of iron scroll-work and its row of tall windows, this has a distinctly Spanish appearance. It was still unfin-ished when Swinburne visited "Caselnuovo" nearly sixty years later. He commented, The suite of apartments is grand, but the situation uncomfortable without garden or prospect. Nearby lie the remnants of a ghetto from which the Jews were expelled at the end of the seventeenth century; some of the houses, one dated 1602, have curious windows whose heavy tracery is designed to conceal the occupants from being seen by pa.s.sers-by in the street below.

Janet Ross visited Manduria while staying at Leucaspide near Taranto as the guest of her friend Sir James Lacaita. A notary born in Manduria, he had become legal adviser to the British legation at Naples. After giving information about political prisoners to Mr Gladstone, who then described the Borbone regime as "the negation of G.o.d," Lacaita fled to England. Here he failed to become Librarian of the London Library, but was employed as secretary by Lord Lansdowne, acquiring many influential friends, including the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell; he was knighted in 1858 for organising Gladstone's mission to the Ionian Islands. In 1860, in desperation, the Neapolitan government asked him to become its amba.s.sador in London and persuade the British to stop Garibaldi invading the mainland from Sicily. As he afterwards admitted, it took him three days to decide, but he refused, helping to destroy the old Regno.

No Apulian profited more from the Risorgimento. A director of Italian Lands Ltd., a London based firm formed in 1864 to handle the sale of all Neapolitan crown and church lands for the new regime, he quickly ama.s.sed a large fortune, and in 1868 bought Leucaspide with other former monastic property. Certainly the best known Pugliese in Victorian England (not excepting the Duke of Castromediano), he entertained English visitors lavishly. A small man with simian features, lowering eyebrows and bushy side-whiskers, despite his charm and scholarship, he had a slightly unsavoury air, even if it was not apparent to Mrs. Ross.

She was escorted from Ma.s.safra station to Leucaspide by a guard "with a big pistol stuck in his belt and a gun slung over his shoulder." The drive was lined by agaves, tall as small trees. Behind the house her host had planted a ravine with bushes in imitation of an English shrubbery, rosemary and cistus covering its sides. There was a view of olive groves sweeping down to the Gulf of Taranto with, far off, the rugged Calabrian mountains. "We were never tired of looking down from the loggia or arcade, which ran all along the south-west front of the "impostura" ("imposter"), as Sir James laughingly called Leucaspide, so imposing in its dazzling whiteness from a little distance, and giving itself the airs of a large palazzo", Mrs. Ross recalled. "From the garden below came the scent of lemon and orange trees, laden with fruit."

In 1988, exactly a century after her visit, we went to Leucaspide. Lacaita's son had left it to his agent, a descendant of whom lived in a small house behind the villa, empty for twenty years. A nervous German shepherd dog patrolled its vast, flat roof. Yet white roses clambered up the loggia, which seemed as if sleeping, waiting for the labour gangs to dance for the guests. We might even have fancied that the ghost of Janet Ross was sitting on the terrace in her Turkish trousers, smoking one of her infamous cheroots. But on the far side of the ravine and to the south of the farm buildings, loomed the sprawl of the Italsider steel-works, coming nearer and nearer. We have not been back.

Apulians are a superst.i.tious race, a trait sometimes exploited for political ends. During the revolutionary troubles of 1799, the Mandurian royalists, using a belief that on 2 November the dead come out of their tombs and walk the streets, staged a procession of "ghosts" chanting "Be calm, be faithful to Ferdinand!" Apparently the ruse worked.

Many travellers describe seeing votive offerings at churches, like the round stones hung outside the sanctuary of the Archangel at Monte Sant' Angelo. Some years ago, at the rupestrian chapel of San Pietro Mandurino, we saw the skin of a fox stuck on a tree just outside the door. A Mandurian said it was a thanks-offering to St Peter for saving a hen from the jaws of death. But Janet Ross heard that the skin of an animal always hung on the great walnut tree of Benevento, a meeting place for witches. Inside the church there were intricate circles of pebbles in front of the altar. When we asked a friend in Gioia about what we had seen, he laughed: "I don't take that stuff seriously." But then he changed colour, adding "It's very dangerous, like using cards to get control of someone's soul."

Shortly after, we read in Norman Lewis's "Naples '44" that he had come across fox-magic at Sagranella, up in the hills behind Benevento. "This village seems hardly to have moved out of the Bronze Age," he writes. "I am told it has a fox-cult, and every year a fox is captured and burned to death, and its tail is hung, like a banner, from a pole at the village's entrance." Benevento was neither Greek nor Messapian territory but Samnite. Even so, we feel sure that the Messapians would have had no difficulty in explaining the significance of our Mandurian fox hanging in a tree.

Part XII.

Three Little Courts.

51.

Conversano.

Supported by a vast following, that included many kinsmen together with large bands of unruly retainers, magnates like the Count of Conversano... were able to b.l.o.o.d.y their hands with crimes against their va.s.sals.

Rosario Villari, "La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli"

FEUDALISM SURVIVED IN APULIA until the French invasion of 1806, even if "va.s.sals" no longer went out to battle. Sometimes the feudal lords were tyrants, oppressing their va.s.sals and levying their dues mercilessly, like the notorious Count Giangirolamo II of Conversano. There is a lurid legend that he claimed the jus primae noctis (Law of the First Night) and had every peasant girl from his estates on her wedding night, or else gave her to one of his cronies.

In the midst of cherry orchards, Conversano is up on the Murgia dei Trulli, between Bari and Martina Franca, with beautiful views out to sea. Crouched almost menacingly above what are now the public gardens, despite an elegant Baroque gateway and apartments, the counts' ma.s.sive castle keeps its Angevin towers and ramparts, a polygonal bastion from Aragonese days bearing the coat of arms of the Acquaviva. The Acquaviva were one of the 'Seven Families of the Kingdom of Naples', the others being Aquino, Ruffo, Sanseverino, Del Balzo, Celano and Piccolomini, to whom the county came through the marriage of Giulio Antonio Acquaviva to Caterina del Balzo Orsini in 1456; its territory then included Bitetto, Gioia del Colle and Noci, with several other towns. Count Giulio Antonio I was killed by the Turks in 1481, during the campaign to retake Otranto, his horse galloping back to his tent with his decapitated body. His head had been stuck on a Turkish pike, but eventually the corpse was rea.s.sembled and brought home to Conversano. His family were consoled with the right to use the royal arms and name of Aragon.

His son, Count Andrea Matteo Acquaviva d'Aragona, a leader of the pro-French party, advised the French to seize Bari, and in consequence spent two years in a dungeon at Naples after the Spanish victory in 1503. Learned in both letters and the military arts, he installed a printing press at Conversano, and printed a book of Plutarch's "Moralia", which he had himself translated from Greek into Latin. He also completed the nearby church of Madonna dell' Isola, which had been begun by his father, commissioning a monument of painted stone by an Apulian sculptor, Nuzzo Barba of Galatina; beneath it lie the rec.u.mbent effigies of Giulio Antonio I and his countess, their son kneeling next to them in full armour.

By the seventeenth century, like all great n.o.blemen in Apulia, the Counts of Conversano were facing ruin, they were victims of an unending recession, owing vast sums to money-lenders at Naples. The ruthless exploitation of feudal dues meant the difference between survival and bankruptcy.

Because of a cast in one eye, 'a singular mark of the Fiend', Count Giangirolamo II was nicknamed 'Il Guercio di Puglia' ('the Apulian Squinter'). Born in 1600, at seventeen he led 300 horse-men from Conversano to help repel a Turkish attack on Andria. As soon as he became Count in 1626, hiring an army of brigands he extorted his dues mercilessly tolls, levies on grain, oil and wine, compulsory use of his mills and ovens, of his wine and olive presses. Every non-n.o.ble landowner in the county of Conversano and the duchy of Nard (inherited from his mother) suffered, whether peasants or borghesi. The mayor of Nard tried to stop him, so in 1639 he arranged for the mayor to be strangled, and then, to conceal his involvement, had the murderer throttled in the church where the murder took place. Later, he was accused of twenty other murders. He was greatly respected by fellow magnates.

In 1640, encouraged by a heavily indebted Viceroy, the richest banker in Naples, Bartolomeo d'Aquino, who was "of a dirty and mean appearance in keeping with his birth", tried to marry Il Guercio's sister, Anna, offering to pay 40,000 ducats. Having just been accused of the mayor's murder and in sanctuary in the friary of San Lorenzo at Naples, Giangirolamo could not intervene. But he summoned his friends, who rode to the palace where the girl was staying, beat off the Viceroy's guard, and escorted her at sword-point to a convent in Benevento outside the Viceroy's reach. He then gave his sister a more acceptable husband and a dowry of 9,000 ducats.

Although he escaped prosecution over the mayor, he was arrested in 1643 for involvement in a pro-French plot and sent to Madrid. When the news reached Nard, its delighted citizens wanted a Te Deum sung, but a priest, Don Ottavio Sambiase, told them an exorcism was more fitting, making everyone repeat, "O Lord, may you hurl the Count of Conversano down to h.e.l.l!". However, at Madrid both Philip IV and Il Guercio were charmed by each other, the king sending Giangirolamo home in 1645 as Captain-General of Nard with even stronger powers over his va.s.sals.

He was zealous in crushing the 1647 rebellion, which was as much against feudal magnates as against Spain, his equally ferocious wife, Isabella Filomarino, selling her jewels to pay for troops. Raising eighty cavalry and 300 foot-soldiers, within a few months he had pacified Apulia, where every town except Manfredonia and Lucera had joined the rebellion. There had been peasant revolts everywhere; as Rosario Villari writes in "La rivolta antispagnola a Napoli", it was "basically a peasant war, the biggest and most dramatic in Western Europe during the seventeenth century." Giangirolamo commanded only a few troops and a handful of n.o.bles with their retainers, but fought a very effective campaign, even if his son Don Giulio was shot dead at his side. In 1648 he won a decisive victory at Foggia, whose citizens opened their gates in abject surrender, and another at Lecce. Generally he pardoned the towns-men, merely fining them.

During the previous summer Giangirolamo's city of Nard had declared that it no longer owed allegiance to him as feudal lord, only to the King of Spain. But there was no resistance when he entered with his soldiers in 1648 and its citizens renewed their allegiance. Scarcely had he left the city, however, when they rebelled again, besieging the garrison of a hundred men he had left in the castle, who were joined by citizens supporting him. The count-duke returned swiftly, investing the city's twenty-four towers with 400 troops, directing operations from his ma.s.seria of Lo Stanzio. After the rebels had fought for two days and nights, inflicting heavy casualties, the castle garrison routed them in a surprise attack. Giangirolamo then promised a general pardon, whereupon they laid down their arms.

As soon as Giangirolamo's men entered the city a reign of terror began, 'traitors' being tortured and hanged. The septuagenarian Baron Sambiase was hung up to die by dangling from one foot, the mayor, who had fled to Gallipoli, was pursued and killed, while four canons were shot and beheaded; their heads, wearing birettas, were nailed over their choir-stalls in the cathedral; it was rumoured that their bodies were flayed and the skins used to cover chairs in the gran salone (grand gallery) at Conversano. The houses of many other rebels were razed to the ground. Il Guercio's governor continued the hangings for several months. Count Giangirolamo was arrested for a second time in 1651 and once more taken to Spain. He never saw Conversano or Nard again, dying in 1655 when about to sail home. It was probably a stroke, but popular legend claims that the Spaniards had him torn to pieces by wild horses.

This bloodstained ogre was one of the greatest patrons of art in Apulian history. The church of SS. Cosma e Damiano, which he built at Conversano between 1636 and 1650, is a Baroque jewel-box. The most important artist he employed was Paolo Domenico Finoglio, born about 1590, who had made his reputation at Naples, helping Ribera and Artemisia Gentileschi decorate the Certosa of San Martino. He arrived at Conversano in 1635 with less than ten years to live, and, leaving the frescoes in SS. Cosma e Damiano to Fracanzano and Carlo Rosa, concentrated on painting the altar-pieces, together with a moving "Martyrdom of San Gennaro" in the cloister.

Finoglio's finest paintings have returned to Conversano after a long absence, restored to their glory, and may be seen again at the castle. These are ten scenes from Il Guercio's favourite epic, Ta.s.so's "Gerusalemme Liberata", a fantastic reconstruction in verse of the first Crusade; a world of jewelled grottoes, magic islands and enchanted forests, full of golden serpents and goblins with dragon-wings, inhabited by heroes (such as the Norman G.o.defroy de Bouillon), guardian angels, fiendish witches and ladies in armour, especially a dying Saracen sorceress of wonderful beauty who begs for baptism. The sub-plots are stories of love for unattainable heroines by knights errant driven out of their wits by spells. Holding a torch, the artist himself appears in "The Torture of Olindo and Sofronia", with melancholy eyes, a huge fleshy nose and a cleft chin.

One of Finoglio's finest sacred paintings, "St Benedict and St Sabinus", is in the nearby abbey church of San Benedetto. The Counts of Conversano certainly left their mark on this abbey, their preferred burial place. An ancient foundation, whose church dates in part from the eleventh century, it later became a convent of Cistercian nuns under a mitred abbess. The counts' daughters supplied most of the haughty abbesses, who were a byword for truly staggering arrogance when they dealt with bishops, neighbouring magnates or anyone else, until the abbey was dissolved in 1809.

Il Guercio had three sons, all men of the sword. Cosmo, ('O Sfidante'), was slain in the duel at Ostuni, Giulio fell in battle, while Giantommaso took vows as a Knight of Malta. But Cosmo's son prospered. "The ancient castle or palace is most majestic, newly refurbished as a splendid dwelling by Count Acquaviva, lord of the city and of the surrounding region", wrote the Abate Pacich.e.l.li, who came to Conversano during the 1680s. He tells us reverently that the count's courtiers are "all t.i.tled people", admires his fine furniture with its gilt and embroidery, and is dazzled by "an almost unbelievable abundance of silver plate, mingled with vases of porcelain and rock crystal." (This was the Count Giulio who threatened to cut off the Duke of Noja's nose and ears.) The Counts of Conversano were famous for their magnificent horses. After the invention of firearms heavy mounts for carrying men in full armour had to be replaced by swift, athletic animals that were capable of taking evasive action when necessary. From the fifteenth century the Counts imported Andalusian and Arab stallions to cover local mares, and by the eighteenth their offspring were being offered to half the courts of Europe; Lippizaners trace some of their blood-lines to Conversano stallions. Cir Annichiarico, the brigand priest, who had ridden some of the finest horses in Apulia, thought that Conversanos were faster than Andalusians.

The Acquaviva d'Aragona's final years were embittered by sordid wrangles over feudal dues. Even the brigands whom they had been employing as their enforcers were unable to help them after the crown's draconian new measures against banditi. In 1801 Giulio Antonio IV, thirty-eighth Count of Conversano, left the city in disgust to live at Naples. Five years later, King Joseph Bonaparte abolished feudalism and the Acquaviva sold the castle soon after. They retained many of their Apulian estates, however, together with their lordly hunting-lodge of Marchione.

Built about 1740 by Count Giulio Antonio III, between Conversano and Putignano, Marchione is unique in Apulia because the Apulian magnates normally stayed at a ma.s.seria when they went hunting. In design it is a beautiful little castle whose four squat towers are crowned by terraces, and whose elegant piano n.o.bile (n.o.ble floor)has an arcaded loggia that is reached by ascending a majestic double staircase. Despite standing among almond and cherry orchards today, as a hunting-lodge it once stood in an oak forest and two sole surviving oak-trees are lovingly preserved in the grounds. The game hunted was wild boar.

The last Acquaviva d'Aragona left Marchione to her son, the late Prince of Boiano (and Count of Conversano) who restored it. The house contains what must be the only surviving portrait of Il Guercio. Count Giangirolamo is shown as a stocky man with a Vandyck beard, a smiling face and a huge rapier and no trace of a squint.

52.

Martina Franca

some barons are like sovereigns in their lands Paolo Maria Doria, Vite Civile FORTY KILOMETRES TO THE SOUTH EAST, Martina Franca is an even prettier little city than Conversano. On a hill at the highest level of the Murgia del Trulli it dominates the fertile Val d'Itria and, although nowadays its white walls are masked by high-rise flats, the centre remains unspoilt, with narrow white-washed streets and small Baroque palazzi that have wrought-iron balconies. A local historian, Michele Pizzigallo, describes it proudly as "belonging to yesterday, like a flower always in bud."

Founded in the tenth century by refugees from the Saracens, Martina expanded in the fourteenth, being granted many privileges and adding "Franca" to its name. Raimondello del Balzo Orsini built a castle in 1388 while a hundred years later its lord was Francesco Coppolo, Count of Sarno, whom King Ferrante made his finance minister and then destroyed. In 1507 Martina Franca became a duchy and was given to Petraccone III Caracciolo del Leone, Count of Buccino in Basilicata. The family descended from 'Sergianni' Caracciolo, Grand Seneschal of Naples and lover of Queen Giovanna II, who ama.s.sed a vast fortune before being murdered. The Caracciolo del Leone took their name from the lion on their coat-of-arms, to be seen all over Martina Franca.

The Masaniello of Martina Franca, who led the 1647 revolt here, was a blacksmith, Vivantonio Montanaro, called 'Capo-di-Ferro', ('Iron Head'). Duke Francesco I routed him by importing 300 mercenaries. But generally strife was less b.l.o.o.d.y, mainly wrangles over the ducal feudal dues that were levied by professional tax-gatherers. They caused chronic resentment, which was why most dukes preferred to spend much of their time at Buccino, until the accession of Petracone V in 1655.

Duke Petracone was always loyal to the Regno's Spanish King and when only thirteen served in Spain against the Portuguese. On his return two years later he married Aurelia Imperiali of Francavilla. After killing the Count of Conversano, he and his brother Innico were imprisoned, but so many n.o.bles interceded that they were soon released. When he came out of prison in 1668, Petracone began building a palace.

The old Orsini castle was pulled down, replaced by a palazzo, so beautifully proportioned that it has been attributed to Bernini. The main faade has a balcony with iron scroll-work running the length of the building beneath a long line of windows, and a tall gateway flanked by two great columns leading into a large court-yard. Pacich.e.l.li thought it "a work of perfection... very like the Casa Pamphilij in Piazza Navona at Rome", noting that each faade has sixteen windows, and that there is a gallery, a theatre and a roof-garden. He reminds us that "The Lord Duke is also Marquis of Mottola... Lord of Bovino... and Baron of many other lands in Calabria and Lord of Locorotondo nearby, which produces horses and mules and supremely good milk, and is best for cheese."

A portrait of Petracone V shows a self-satisfied face with a big nose verging on the bulbous, a low forehead and a pointed beard. According to Pizzigallo, he was "narrow and obstinate with his family, haughty and offhand with local gentry, open and generous with the people." He lived in great splendour. When his son Francesco, Count of Buccino, married Eleanora Gaetani in 1700, Martina was illuminated for nights on end and hors.e.m.e.n carrying torches serenaded the palazzo, which was lit by splendid fireworks.

The duke had a favourite, Gaetano Faraone, an avaricious tailor, who became both informer and adviser. He ran everything in Martina Franca, but acquired some dangerous enemies, among them the Count and Countess of Buccino. When Petracone died in January, 1704, Faraone was immediately put in a dungeon and accused of dominating the late duke by witchcraft, with the aid of Nardantonia Casparro and Grascia di Mascio, "women commonly reputed to be expert at spells and magic." Nardantonia's daughter testified how one night the tailor had come to her mother's house with dough from which five crosses were made. "The said Faraone crushed each in turn, stamping his feet as he did so crying 'Devil, Devil, Devil, Beelzebub, give me entire ownership of the will and desires of Don Francesco, Count of Buccino, as I have over the Duke his father!'" He then placed the crosses in a bag, saying that he would drop them in a well. Five pieces of dough were found in a cistern at his house, wrapped in paper on which was written "Gaetano Faraone".

When interrogated in February Faraone was very ill because "he had struck his breast with a stone while calling on G.o.d to pardon his sins." He was placed in a "horrible dungeon" where he was found dead in May, the official cause of death being "gangrene of the bladder." Forty years later, some citizens of Francavilla Fontana accused Francesco II of murdering him. He was so alarmed that he contemplated giving the duchy to his son and going into a monastery, but eventually escaped with a fine of 20,000 ducats.

Francesco II made feudal dues even more burdensome, with a new poll-tax. Martina Franca was divided into two parties; the duke's followers and the moderates, the Ducalisti; and the radical borghesi, called Universalisti. However, as feudal lord the duke controlled elections to the commune and the appointment of most officials, including the mayor, and during the eighteenth century his va.s.sals grew still more frustrated. Petracone VI, a straight-forward soldier who succeeded in 1752, did his best to make life easier, consulting both Ducalisti and Universalisti, but after seven years, exasperated by constant litigation, he handed the duchy over to his son.

Francesco III, who became duke in 1772, was much liked, his love of the country and interest in agriculture endearing him to the peasants. He and his wife, Stefania Pignatelli, modelled their little court on the royal court at Naples, plays being regularly produced in the palace theatre. In 1773 they commissioned Domenico Carella to paint the rooms of the piano n.o.bile; the Mythology Room, the Bible Room and the Arcadia Room. As Rococo decoration they are superb, especially the Arcadia Room. On the ceiling are painted the Four Seasons. On the walls you can see the duke and his court. Francesco, in striped breeches and waistcoat, carries a tricorne hat while d.u.c.h.ess Stefania has a towering ma.s.s of powdered hair. They are surrounded by their courtiers, the local n.o.bility, in a fete champetre with fiddlers, a flautist and a huntsman with a hunting horn, and a background of country people. A beaming Carella watches from his easel in a corner. There are dogs everywhere, since the painter adored them.

Despite feudal dues, mules and horses brought prosperity to Martina Franca, as can be seen from its Rococo palaces. The best are Palazzi Panelli, Stabile, Martucci and Conte Barnaba, all graceful (yet surprisingly restrained for the period) and all built by the same unknown architect. The civic buildings are equally elegant, the Torre dell' Orologio (1734) and the Palazzo della Corte (1763) in what is now Piazza Roma. Both saw many angry confrontations between Ducalisti and Universalisti.

Count de Salis, who, with Archbishop Capacelatro, visited the duke at his ma.s.seria at San Basilio on their way from Bari to Taranto in 1789, recalled Francesco III's friendly, unaffected manners. Dinner at the ma.s.seria, the Casa del Duca, was "a plain, almost rustic repast". During the meal, the archbishop sang the duke's praises to de Salis for preferring country life to the pleasures of the court at Naples.

Next morning Duke Francesco took de Salis to see his flock of 3,000 sheep and the dairy farm where cheese was made from their milk. All were purebred pecore gentili, descendants of the white Apulian sheep admired by the Romans, although by this date the hardier black sheep with a higher milk-yield was becoming more popular. On the way to the sheepfold the party met a band of shepherds, who walked before their flock carrying a banner, and playing a horn, an oboe, bagpipes and a curious local drum. They were also shown the duke's horses, mules and donkeys, at a stud near the ma.s.seria.

When Francesco III died in 1794, feudalism died with him, even if legally it lingered on for a few more years. His son, Petracone VII, died prematurely in 1796 and the next duke, Placido I, was only eleven. After the Universalisti welcomed the Neapolitan Republic, the city was sacked by Cardinal Ruffo's Sanfedisti and swelled by 7,000 recruits from the Murgia dei Trulli, whose wilder elements ripped up floors in a search for hidden money, plate or jewels. Silks and linen, china and furniture, wine, cheese and salami, were flung out of the windows to gangs waiting below. Some women had rings pulled off their fingers or earrings torn out of their ears.

Predictably, Universalisti supported the Napoleonic regime. So did Duke Placido, whom Murat made Esquire to the King, a high court appointment. He died at Martina Franca in April 1815, a month after Murat's fall.

In 1816 the restored Borbone monarchy issued a decree confirming the abolition of feudalism, although Placido's sickly little son, Petracone VIII, retained the palace with much of his wealth. When he died in 1827 the male line of the Caracciolo del Leone became extinct, the t.i.tle pa.s.sing to his sister Argentina. Through her it went to the Dukes of Sangro.

Sold in 1914, the palace became the Municipio, but in recent years a programme of systematic restoration has given back the state rooms something of their charm. For over a decade a music festival celebrated throughout Europe has been held annually in the courtyard.

53.

Francavilla Fontana

...immense, majestic and well built...

Giovanni Battista Pacich.e.l.li, "Il Regno di Napoli in Prospettiva"

ANOTHER GREAT FEUDAL FIEF in central Apulia was Francavilla Fontana. Unlike the Acquaviva and the Caracciolo, its lords, the Imperiali, were Northerners by origin, Genoese bankers. They also spent far more time at Naples. It is possible that their enormous wealth made for an easier relationship with the locals than at Conversano or Martina Franca, since they did not have to depend so much on feudal dues for their income.

The foundation of Francavilla Fontana was, once again, the story of finding a wonder-working icon. In 1310, Philip of Anjou, Prince of Taranto, was hunting when he saw a stag kneeling by a fountain in a valley and shot at it; to his amazement, the arrow turned round in flight and came back to him. He had the valley searched, a small grotto being discovered which contained a portrait of the Madonna and Child, "painted in the Greek manner". The Prince built a church and, to encourage people to settle around it, granted land to all comers, free from taxes for ten years, giving the settlement the name of Francavilla or 'Free Town'. Many settlers were attracted by the miracles which were worked by the icon. The most famous was on 24 January 1520, when a severe frost and then snow threatened to destroy the crops; everyone prayed before the Madonna of the Fountain and, on rising from their knees, they found that every plant, every leaf and stem, was free from frost or snow. Given walls in 1364 and a castle in 1450, Francavilla Fontana eventually pa.s.sed to the Borromeo. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo sold it in 1571, to feed the poor of Milan.

The purchaser was Davide Imperiali, who already possessed vast estates near Genoa and also in Spain, besides a huge banking for-tune. In the same year, 1571, he equipped four galleys at his own expense and took them to fight the Turks at Lepanto. As a reward, King Philip II made him Marquess of Oria. Davide's son, Michele, acquired the lordships of Avetrana and Ma.s.safra in 1647, together with the t.i.tle 'Prince of Francavilla'.

Pacich.e.l.li is curiously unenthusiastic about the Princes of Francavilla, although he admits that their fief is one of the largest in the realm. However, he admires the wealth of the surrounding countryside its grain, wine, oil, almonds and "other delights", remarking also on the town's "commodious, white-washed houses". He visited it when Michele II was its Prince. This Michele, who reigned from 1676 until 1724, rebuilt the castle as a palace, one of the largest in Apulia. The basic plan remained unchanged, four square towers at each angle and crenellated battlements, but the interior was modernised, the famous Neapolitan architect Ferdi-nando Sanfelice designing the double staircase which leads to the great hall where the Imperiali displayed their collection of paintings. There were superb guest-rooms, and a small theatre. There was also Cardinal Renato Imperiali's library, one of the best in Europe, which was open to the public.

The duomo at Francavilla, housing the miraculous icon, is large and Baroque, rebuilt in 1743 after an earthquake. Henry Swinburne describes it as "new, gay and well lighted; but so stuccoed, festooned and flowery, that the whole decoration is mere chaos." He says the plans were drawn in Rome, but muddled up by a local architect. It has paintings by the prolific Domenico Carella, a native of the town. Among them is "Il Caduto del Fulmine" ("The Fall of the Thunderbolt"), commemorating the drama of Palm Sunday 1779. Six hundred of Francavilla's leading citizens met in the church to discuss public affairs, the debate growing so heated that the Archpriest had to beg them "to respect the house of G.o.d." A certain Angelo Cosimo Candita standing near the main door was particularly noisy. Suddenly a thunderbolt struck the church, killing Candita. His horrified friends commissioned the painting, which still hangs over the main doorway.

Andrea II (172438) was a benevolent ruler who gave the town a school and an orphanage. His son Michele III, fifth and last prince, spent most of his time in Naples where he rented the Cellamare Palace, entertaining seven or eight hundred guests a week; among them was Casanova, who commented that "this amiable and magnificent Prince... preferred the love of Ganymede to Hebe." Even so, he made the steward of his Apulian estates build villages, schools and workshops, and turn scrub into farmland.

When Swinburne visited Francavilla Fontana, Prince Michele had told its citizens to make him welcome, with "honours sufficient to turn the head of a plain English gentleman." Don Domenico, formerly Clerk of the Chamber to the Princess, showed him the town, a mob accompanying them throughout. He thought the houses "showy", but admitted the main street would be "handsome even in a capital city." As for the palace, "The apartments are s.p.a.cious; but, as the owner has been absent above fourteen years, everything wears the face of neglect and decadency." He gives a patronising account of what must have been the town's most prized diversion: I was left to take my afternoon nap, and in the evening entertained with the tragedy of Judith and Holofernes, acted by the young people of the town, in a theatre belonging to the castle. Their rude accent, forced gestures, and strange blunders in language, rendered their dismal drama a complete farce. When the heroine murdered the general, the whole house shook with thundering bursts of applause; the upper part of his body was hidden by the side scenes; the lower parts lay on a couch upon the stage, and in the agonies of death were thrown into such convulsions, kickings and writhings, as melted the hearts and ravished the souls of the attentive audience. Judith then came forward, and repeated a long monologue, with her sword in one hand, and a barber's block dripping with blood, in the other. Never was a tragedy-queen sent off the stage with louder or more sincere acclamations.

Although the Imperiali family was very far from being extinct in Apulia, when Michele III died in 1782 he had no heirs within the fourth degree of consanguinity. The entire fief of Francavilla Fontana therefore reverted to the Crown, together with his other great castles and estates at Manduria, Ma.s.safra, Oria and Messagne. Despite having spent so much time away at Naples, he was deeply mourned. When visiting Oria, de Salis heard that Prince Michele had been a man of "rare knowledge and qualities", who by his kindness had doubled the population of his estates, encouraging many peasants to leave their former lord and settle on his land. But even in 1789, only seven years after the Prince's death, under the Crown's management the Imperiali estates had begun to be less prosperous. Due to being run from Naples by bureaucrats who never set foot in Apulia, "the population had dropped by a third, the newly cultivated ground had deteriorated and the manufacturing industries were completely exhausted."

Francavilla Fontana was very badly bombed in 1944, losing many of the historic "showy" houses next to the duomo. Nevertheless, the main street admired by Swinburne two centuries ago remains much as it was during his visit; the palace has been restored, and the little theatre where he saw the tragedy of Judith and Holofernes is still there.

Among the other great houses that once belonged to the Imperiali Princes of Francavilla Fontana, the palace at Manduria also survives intact, although broken up into flats, a bank and a restaurant. The castles at Ma.s.safra and Messagne have been restored. Best preserved of all, however, is the beautifully maintained castle at Oria, which since 1933 has belonged to the Counts Martini Carissimo.

Part XIII.

Risorgimento?.

54.

The Death of the Regno.

To many it was as if the kingdom had disintegrated with Ferdinand II.

Sir Harold Acton, "The Last Bourbons of Naples"

KING FERDINAND OF THE TWO SICILIES died on 22 May, 1859, two months after his last visit to Bari. His death paved the way for the Risorgimento: the unification of Italy. Nowhere would he be more regretted than in Apulia where, like the Emperor Frederick and King Manfred, he had hunted in the forests. If he did not build castles, he keenly encouraged New Bari's development, besides giving Apulian t.i.tles to three of his sons, the Counts of Bari, Trani and Lucera.

Nicknamed 'Bomba' for supposedly threatening to sh.e.l.l rebels into submission, a lie spread by enemies, Ferdinand was hated by liberals. He kept the absolute monarchy he had inherited, imprisoning his opponents. Mr Gladstone described his government as "the negation of G.o.d", conveniently ignoring England's own prison-hulks and record in Ireland. Yet no Southern ruler has been more popular. A big, bluff, virile man, he was a type whom the Mezzogiorno (southern Italians) understood, the perennial 'capo' or boss, constantly sticking cigars into deserving mouths. A Southerner to his fingertips, who spoke and thought in Neapolitan dialect, and whose staple diet was pasta, he always listened to pet.i.tions, granting generous pensions. If he was superst.i.tious, making St Ignatius a field-marshal on full pay, so were his subjects.

Under his firm rule, the South prospered. Despite lower taxes than other Italian states, it had more money in circulation than any, with the biggest gold reserves; 443 million in gold lire in 1859 compared with Piedmont's 27 million. In the same year the Royal Navy of the Two Sicilies included ninety-five steam ships, far more than Britain's Royal navy, though admittedly most of them were tiny. His government built the first Italian railways, steamships, electric telegraph and lenticular lighthouse. Dockyards at Naples and Bari were the most modern in the peninsula. So were the new roads. "Anybody who avoided subversive politics enjoyed complete freedom and could do what he liked", Giacinto De Sivo wrote in 1868. "Countless foreigners prospered so much that they settled here", he adds bitterly: "Then Gladstone came and ruined us... unbelievable calumnies were repeated in newspapers all over the world."

The men of the Risorgimento had once hoped Ferdinand would become King of Italy, but he refused, from respect for the rights of other Italian sovereigns, especially for those of the Pope. Had he lived longer and, however unwillingly, granted a const.i.tution and Sicilian autonomy, the South might have been much happier. But he died at forty-nine from a mysterious disease probably diabetes which, characteristically, he ascribed to the Evil Eye.