Springs and castles on the edge of the Murgia

Sannicandro di Bari · Toritto · Cassano delle Murge · Acquaviva delle Fonti · BA

Four towns in the province of Bari, between the plain behind the city and the edge of the plateau: Toritto, for the Ministry of Culture's record, lies partly within the Alta Murgia National Park, Cassano, for its municipality, at the gates of the Park. The project register linked them to the tratturi, but no source read uses this word for these places, and the theme must be dropped. Another one holds, quieter. Three towns out of four have a castle born between Byzantines and Normans, Cassano a 14th-century circuit of walls, passed from feudal lord to feudal lord; and beneath the stone runs water: at Acquaviva the name comes from the water table, according to the italia.it portal, at Cassano the natural springs favoured, according to the Ministry, an early settlement. It is a journey for those who love reading the dates in the walls.

The route

Day 1 — Sannicandro di Bari

We begin from Piazza Castello, in front of an irregular polygonal plan with a courtyard and nine towers, built in rubble-core masonry of carparo tuff and stone. The Ministry's record explains why it stands here: in 916 it was an outpost against the Saracens, attributed to Constantine VII or to the strategos Piccingli, and the excavations at the north-west and south-west corners found a first enclosure without towers, with rounded corners, dated by red-banded pottery, by bronze coins of Eastern emperors and by a gold tarì of Gisulf I, prince of Salerno. Deeper still, post holes of Iron Age huts and pit graves of the 6th-4th century BC. Then came the Normans: of the church of San Nicola there remains an apse with the fresco of Countess Emma d'Altavilla, sister of Roger II, and of her son Ruggero Maccabeo. In 1304 Charles II of Anjou granted the fief to the Chapter of San Nicola di Bari, which with interruptions held it until 1806. On the first of August 1850 a fire destroyed towers, decorations and part of the vaults; the castle was inhabited by private owners until 1970 and bought by the municipality in 1967. Whether it can be visited today we have not established: there is a municipal notice of February 2026 on its use, which we have not read. Outside, the town rests on flat areas of calcarenite, at 183 metres; in piazza Unità d'Italia the war memorial of 1929 carries the “Augustea” bell, cast, says the record for the historic centre, from Austrian cannons. From the plain, the next day, in our proposal, towards the plateau.

Day 2 — Toritto and Quasano

Toritto stands on the plateau, and the Ministry's record classifies its centre as defensive. The heart is a square Norman tower of 13 metres by 13, which the record for the castle hypothesises to date from the mid-11th century, at the time of Umfredo. In 1105, in the first mention in the Codice Diplomatico Barese, his son Roberto settles there a dispute between the universitates of Grumo and Bitetto. Between 1189 and 1370 the De Funtanellis added to the north the palatium, round towers and a circuit wall; in 1564 Luigi Pignatelli had the Torre dell'Orologio raised next to it. Orazio Della Tolfa Frangipane placed at the entrance two lions on a base of grey granite and his coat of arms with a Latin epigraph on the tower, whose text we have not found; the same coat of arms returns on the well-head, in white stone, inside the tower. In 1619 Carlo Della Tolfa had Santa Maria della Stella rebuilt, and in 1733 a new gate was opened on the east side of the walls. Then the water: Quasano, a hamlet on the perimeter of the Park, is for the FAI an area rich in springs, crossed by a lama, and is said to be mentioned for the first time, according to the FAI, in 1575 as “Parco di Acquasana”. At the feast of the Madonna, the FAI recalls a tradition of the late 19th century: bread stamped MSSQ; and here the first specimens of Ophrys mateolana, an orchid, were identified. From the springs of Quasano, in our proposal, we pass on to Cassano.

Day 3 — Cassano delle Murge

At Cassano the rock is pierced. The Ministry's record for the historic centre describes a territory crossed by karst caves: the Grotta di Cristo at about 3 km, the Grave di Pasciullo about 2 km to the east, and nearby the Pozzo di Conetto, “inexhaustible spring”. Those springs, writes the record, explain an early settlement, marked by a menhir and by a dolmen-type monolith. In the second half of the 11th century Robert Guiscard gave the village to the archdiocese of Bari, to which Cassano still belongs as a diocese; in the 14th century the Del Balzo fortified it, and a stretch of megalithic walls remains near Santa Maria dei Martiri, built between 1348 and 1350. Of the 14th-century mother church only the bell tower has survived, struck several times by lightning; the church was rebuilt in neoclassical forms from 1858 to a design by Francesco Paolo Galietti. The Palazzo Miani-Perotti dates from 1763, by Vincenzo Ruffo of Cassano, a pupil of Vanvitelli; beneath it, a mosaic floor suggests a Roman villa, and in the undercroft of the church of the Crocifisso the record points out fragments of a temple to Janus.

The MUTEC, in via Sanges, tells over thirty-five centuries of the territory; the municipal record, updated in May 2025, gives it as open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 16 to 19. The Convento di Santa Maria degli Angeli was born, according to the tradition reported by the municipality, from a fresco found in a cave around 1250; the bull of Paul II for the new friary is dated 29 May 1469, and the cloister has frescoes of the early 18th century on the life of San Francesco. The Foresta Mercadante, a pine wood of 1928, was planted to curb the instability of the Murgia. Between Cassano and Santeramo, according to the Ministry's catalogue, scenes were shot of the silent film “Idillio infranto” (1931) by Nello Mauri, which also had some at Acquaviva.

Day 4 — Acquaviva delle Fonti

Acquaviva stands at about 300 metres, halfway, says the Ministry's record, between the Adriatic coast and the Gulf of Taranto, and carries water in its name. Its history is that of a castle that changes owners: to the Norman count Cornulo, between 1129 and 1136, date the oldest core and the first circuit of walls; in the mid-12th century another Norman count added rooms and the oldest layout of Sant'Eustachio; Filippo Cinardo, of the entourage of Frederick II, rebuilt the walls; at the end of the 15th century, in the conflict that the record links to Charles VIII, castle and walls were partly destroyed. With the Acquaviva d'Aragona, in the 16th century, the palazzi Coriolano and Abrusci and the churches of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Benedetto arose, and Sant'Eustachio was rebuilt; the de Mari, feudal lords until 1806, gave the castle its present appearance, and the Palazzo De Mari is today the town hall. The cathedral, according to italia.it, is one of the four Palatine Basilicas of Puglia; the FAI describes on the portal the lunette with the vision of Sant'Eustachio and in the crypt three altars, two of them of silver. The red onion is a Slow Food Presidium: for Slow Food the soil, deep and rich in potassium, is ideal for growing it, and a text of 1875 that called those onions “highly sought after even from distant regions”. On provincial road 127 towards Santeramo, the Grotta di Curtomartino, an in situ museum according to ISPRA, can be visited only with a guide by booking; inside, according to italia.it, stalactites and stalagmites.

DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 15 defects corrected · not approved