POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books

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POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
Domenico Matarrese

POLIGNANO
  A MARE
      Photographs by
       Nicola Amato

    Mario Adda Editore
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
Acknowledgments:
                       Giovanni Abbatepaolo
                         don Vito Benedetti
                            Franco Bianco
                         Rocco Sanseverino
                            Vito Pellegrini
                Dorino Contento (www.dorinogb.it)
              Augusto and Loretta Tavassi La Greca
                Bianca Tavassi La Greca Valentini
     Cycle routes: Associazione Ciclammino (Conversano)
Map of the historical district: Etabeta Comunicazione (Conversano)
 Map of the sea grottoes of Polignano a Mare: Riccardo Di Leva

                           ISBN 9788867173204
                             © Copyright 2017
                  Mario Adda Editore – via Tanzi, 59 – Bari
                       Tel. and fax +39 080 5539502
                          Web: www.addaeditore.it
                     e-mail: addaeditore@addaeditore.it
                             All rights reserved.

                      Translated by: Christina Jenkner

                          Layout: Vincenzo Valerio

                             Print: Grafica 080
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
5

                      Contents

    7   The landscape
  19           The Polignano carrot

  21  Bits of history
  22  From the origins to the Norman period
  24		        The coat of arms
  26  From the Swabians to the late 19th century
  31  From the unification of Italy to the present day
  38		        The “other” Polignano

  39  Itineraries
  40  The old harbour
  45  The historic district (Gianni Talenti)
  61  The sacred places
  73		         The feast of the Martyr Saints Cosma,
               Damiano and Espedito
  79  The settlement of San Vito
  92		         The Patron Saint
  93		         The festivities of the Patron Saint
  96  The sea grottoes
100		          Grotta Palazzese
104		          Cala Ponte Marina
106   Archaeological excavation areas
112		          Santa Barbara
114   The municipal district of Polignano
117		          The legend of the Christ
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
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    123  Flavours (Innocente Galluzzi)
    131		       The ice cream city

    133  Famous people
    134  Domenico Modugno
    136		        The places of Domenico Modugno
    138  Pino Pascali
    139		        The Fondazione Pino Pascali Museum
                 of Contemporary Art

    141    Events

    145    The surroundings

    149    Bibliography
    150    Webliography
    151    Index of places
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
The landscape
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
8     Polignano a Mare

Rising at the top of steep       lana Grotte, reaching an al-    In terms of morphology the
cliffs high above the sea,       titude of about 290 m a.s.l.    coast appears extremely jag-
Polignano a Mare, “gem” of       In relation to the area’s ge-   ged. Steep, rocky shores
the Adriatic, is situated 30     ology, the formations crop-     alternate with low ones,
km south of Puglia’s main        ping out date from the Up-      reaching a maximum height
city, Bari.                      per Cretacean and have ma-      of about 15 m to the north of
The municipal district has       rine origins (Bari limestone,   the town, and 22-23 m near
an approximately triangular      Altamura limestone, and         the historic district. This
shape and stretches across       Mola limestone); they make      kind of morphology has
an area of 62.50 square          up the substrate of the en-     been determined by tectonic
kilometres. Its 16 km long       tire Murge region. On them      processes, but is also the re-
coast stretch runs in north-     rest the Plio-Pleistocene       sult of the combined action
west-southeast     direction.    units (Gravina calcarenite      of sea and weather as well as
The coastal plain gradu-         and Murge tufa with great       karst phenomena.
ally rises landwards up to       amounts of fossil rests) and    What makes this shoreline
reaching an elevation of 80      the terraced marine and con-    landscape so peculiar are the
m a.s.l. and more. In this di-   tinental units from the Mid-    high cliffs and caves result-
rection the municipal district   dle-Upper Pleistocene and       ing from the erosion of the
projects into that of Castel-    the Holocene.                   calcareous and calcarenite
POLIGNANO A MARE Photographs by Nicola Amato - Domenico matarrese - New Italian Books
The landscape        9

outcrops. The cliffs form a      waters, which are mostly         er, like Pozzovivo, Monti-
vertical rock face with a flat   missing due to the features      cello, Cala Sala or Portal-
rocky platform at the top        of the karst soil. As happens    ga, Cala Messa, Sant’Oron-
that displays a slight slope     throughout the Apulian plat-     zo or Monachile, Cala Pau-
in direction of the sea. They    form, water runs mostly un-      ra, Lapilli, Torre Ciaffata,
run along most of Poligna-       derground through the fis-       Cala San Giovanni, the La-
no’s coastline, particularly     sures and hollows of the         mione, and Pozzo Cavalieri.
between Chiar di luna and        limestone.                       The lame end at picturesque
Torre Incina, at the border      The lame run mostly orthog-      little sand or pebble beach-
with the municipal district      onally to the coast and have     es, once the seat of a thriv-
of Monopoli.                     a flat bottom, with vertical     ing fishing business, now of-
Here and there, the rocky        slopes and a drainage divide     fering a shelter to the colour-
platform is interrupted by       that is hard to define. Based    ful gozzi, as the fishing boats
the outlet of the so-called      on their size, there are larg-   are called, but serving above
lame, namely shallow lit-        er lame, such as Cala Inci-      all as landing places for
tle streambeds that are usu-     na, Bagiolaro, Carbonel-         tourist boats and as popular
ally dry and fill only after     li, Lamafico, Santa Can-         lidos during the summer.
heavy rain. They are the on-     dida, Baldassarre, Macchi-
ly visible trace of surface      alunga. Others are small-        The cliffs looking south
10    Polignano a Mare

Underground, the limestone        of Polignano a Mare is giv-      al regions with mild and
of the Apulian platform           en by the presence of caves.     rainy winters and hot and
holds a freshwater aquifer        There are about seventy of       dry summers. The aver-
resting above saltwater in-       them at an active evolution      age annual temperature is
truding from the sea. Along       stage. Many of them take up      15/17°C, with the lowest in
the coast, the aquifer lies at    different levels on the cliff    January (7°C) and the high-
sea level and when it flows       walls and are often the result   est in August (25°/26°C)
under pressure, it is often as-   of karst passages shaped by      and wide average tempera-
sociated with freshwater or       the erosion of the sea.          ture ranges, both in diurnal
brackish water springs in         In terms of climate the ar-      and yearly terms (19/20°C).
the sea.                          ea enjoys the typical weath-     Rainfall, which is less in-
The peculiarity of the coast      er of Mediterranean coast-       tense in summer (50/75
The landscape        11

mm), is more frequent in au-    a.s.l. the vegetation main-    marshland grasses (reed and
tumn and winter (500/700        ly includes evergreen trees,   semi-aquatic plants). Above
mm), with possible thunder-     such as oaks (holm oak and     the altitude of 200 metres
storms and hailstorms. The      downy oak), olive trees and    we find little mixed woods
forming of frost is frequent,   typical species of the Medi-   or downy oak groves, in-
whereas snowfall is quite ra-   terranean macchia, or scrub,   stead. Intensive farming has
re and mostly occurring in      such as evergreen bush-        significantly reduced the ar-
the months of January and       es and shrubs growing in       ea covered with woods, and
February.                       dense groups and often
Associated with these cli-      covered with thorns. Near
mate conditions, along          the coast, where there is      The historic district rising
the coast and up to 200 m       more humidity, we can find     from the steep cliffs
12   Polignano a Mare
The landscape   13
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