ALBEROBELLO
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Alberobello
(420 m. above sea level) sprouts up on a wide relief cut
in two by a depression produced by the action of an
ancient water course. The surrounding landscape, rich in
olive groves, vineyards and cherry  orchards, offers carsic dolinas and
terraced lands whose genesis is bend to tectonic
phenomena. The configuration of the entire area is the
result of erosive actions on the calcareous rocks
produced by meteoric waters, on the surface as much as in
the depth. From these stratificated rocks is drawn the
building material used to covei the conic tops of the
trulli, the so called "chiancarelle". The
history of Alberobello is that of a small community of
farmers  which
is grown up through two centuries from the end of the XIV
century, in spite of the fact that they had no juridical
recognition. Actually the local historians relate about
the existence, already in the XV century, of an early
nucleous of about 40 little circle-based dwellings having
conic tops, scattered around on a woody land, quite
surely prototypes of the tipical kind of building
existing since a very long time in the so called "Silva
Arbor Belli". The year 1654 marks a meaningful date
for the birth of Alberobello, because it was in that year
that the Count of "II Conversano Giangirolamo
Acquaviva, catled "Guereza di Puglia", was
forced to present to the royal Court of  Justice appropriate justifications
about the illegal dwellings in Alberobello, following a
denouncement from the Duke of Martina. Giangirolamo,
having previously known of a royal inspection, gave the
order to demolish immediately most of the trulli existing
at that time and ordered the inhabitants spread in the
woods. The result of the inquiry was positive for the
Count, who then recalled the farmers and authorized the
re-building of the trulli with the severe obligation not
to use any  mortar or any other
systematic building material, but houses built stone on
stone. Only in 1797 seven members from the community were
able to have a talk with King Ferdinando IV while was
visiting the city of Taranto, in order to prospect the
precarious juridical situation of their village and to
ask the King the liberation from the feudal bondage and
the recognition of Alberobello as a town royal to the
Kingdom, that they gained with a royal decree on May 27"
1797.
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other pictures of Alberobello 3 |
