Monograph Otranto

• PREFAZIONE pag.5
• Introduzione pag.8
• Il centro storico pag.12
• Torre Matta pag.15
• Castello Aragonese pag.17
• Cattedrale della SS. Annunziata pag.20
• Torre del Serpe pag.24
• Torre Pinta pag.27
• Cava di Bauxite pag.29
• Grotta dei Cervi pag.31
• Français pag.35
• English pag.52
• Deutsch pag.69
• Español pag.88
• BIBLIOGRAFIA pag.105

OTRANTO

Otranto is the most eastern Italian municipality in Salento. Because of its geographical position and its history, it is considered the gateway to the East, a crossroads of millenarian Mediterranean cultures. The territory falls within the circuit of the 100 most beautiful municipalities in Italy, and most of the magnificent coastline is protected by the Costa Otranto Regional Park - S. Maria di Leuca and Bosco di Tricase.

That of Otranto is an ancient history that emerged already in the eleventh century before Christ. Protagonist of the great historical events of the Mediterranean, Otranto still shows in its testimonies the passage of the numerous peoples who animated it. Until the seventh century, Otranto played an important role in administrative policy, acting for centuries as the seat of the strategos, the Byzantine governor.

Otranto is the cultural synthesis of the East and the West. A conjugation between two shores of sea that is not always peaceful, as sadly occurred in 1480, when Otranto was besieged and conquered by the Ottoman Turkish army. Otranto is the frontier land, a must for the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean and a privileged destination for hundreds of thousands of visitors, who crowd the small old town every year. The atmosphere is evocative and romantic, so much to have inspired many reporters and writers, who in Otranto have dedicated their literary works.

The blue sky of Puglia cannot have better frame than the village of Otranto, with its sculptured stones and its sublime songs, the heritage of the glorious cultures of Byzantium and the warm poems of Aragon.