Coreggia, Metropolitan City of Bari, Italy

Coreggia, Metropolitan City of Bari, Italy

Coreggia, Metropolitan City of Bari Italy

The area was first settled in the early sixteenth century, encouraged by the Count of Conversano, Andrea Matteo III Acquaviva d'Aragona. He allowed about forty peasant families from Noci to move here and farm the land, on condition that they give him a tenth of their harvest. In 1635 his successor, Count Giangirolamo II (1600–1665), built an inn with a tavern and an oratory and began developing the forest by putting up a small number of houses. The growth of the settlement was helped by the abundance of limestone, karst and calcareous sedimentary rock, and by the count’s permission to build houses only with dry stone walls, without mortar – structures that would become the distinctive trulli. This rule about dry stone construction was a clever way for the count to avoid paying taxes to the Spanish viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples. The centre of Alberobello later grew along the course of the old Cana river, where Largo Giuseppe Martelotta now lies. Alberobello remained under the control of the Acquaviva of Aragon family until 27 May 1797, when King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon raised the small village to the status of a royal town, freeing it from feudal obligations to the counts. On 22 June 1797 the first mayor, Francesco Giuseppe Lippolis, was elected. Alberobello is the only inhabited town with an entire district of trulli and is regarded as the cultural capital of the trulli of the Itria Valley.
Recommended airport
Bari (BRI)
Points of interest
  • Coreggia
Nearby destinations
  • Ostuni, Apulia a 28.59 km
  • Bari a 47.82 km
  • Taranto a 37.20 km