Ceglie Messapica · Villa Castelli · Francavilla Fontana · Oria · BR
Four municipalities in the province of Brindisi, which the 2015 regional map-guide joined in route no.37, “Ciclovia dell'Acquedotto (I)”. The thread that binds them, in the documents read, is twofold. The first is Messapian: Ceglie and Oria were cities of that people; at Francavilla the Province of Brindisi records a small settlement between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, at Villa Castelli an area inhabited from the late Neolithic to the middle of the Bronze Age. The second is the countryside: masserie with trulli and crypts, and a town, Villa Castelli, born from an estate. The theme holds well for Ceglie and Oria, less for the other two, where the Messapians are a few lines and the story moves on to the feudal lords, the Imperiali, lords of Francavilla and of Oria and owners of the estate from which Villa Castelli was born. Almost everything comes from a Province information sheet from around 2001. It is a journey for those who read a territory from the caves to the towers.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Ceglie Messapica
We begin underground, in the karst cave of contrada San Michele, where the Province of Brindisi records a fresco of the Madonna in prayer, “probably” from the 8th century, which it indicates as the oldest in the province. The same sheet identifies Ceglie with the “Caelium” mentioned by Pliny, a military, political and religious centre of the Messapian State, which flourished above all between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. It led the Messapian cities against Taranto: first it won, then it was conquered and destroyed, and King Opis, who is believed to have lived in the Ceglie stronghold, fell. The tombs with rich grave goods and the numerous Messapian inscriptions found in the town, according to the sheet from around 2001, were kept in the municipal picture gallery; other inscriptions, dedicated to Aphrodite, come from the caves of Montevicoli, where the same sheet indicated a living nativity scene at Christmas. The medieval town has its chain of lords: Charles II of Anjou gave the fief as a dowry to his daughter Eleonora, wife of Baron Filippo di Tuzziaco; it passed to the archiepiscopal Curia of Brindisi, then around the middle of the 14th century to the Sanseverino, and then to the Luperano and the Sisto-Britto. Beside the castle, the mother church has the Baroque appearance given to it in 1796; the Porta di Giuso preserves Gothic traces, the Porta Monterone a square 15th-century tower. Outside the town, the specchie of the countryside, truncated cones with external stairs, were probably watchtowers; and at the masseria Montedoro a complex of trulli from 1792 housed, according to the same sheet, the Museo della Civiltà del Trullo, dedicated to peasant life. On the road to Francavilla, the Madonna della Grotta holds a Basilian crypt with 13th-century frescoes: it is the road of the following day.
Day 2 — Villa Castelli and Francavilla Fontana
Villa Castelli is a town that was once an estate. According to the Province, the farm “Li Castelli” would have arisen on a Roman villa rustica, and in the 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest estates in the countryside of Francavilla; the Imperiali bred thoroughbred horses there, an activity that flourished at the end of the 18th century. In 1797, after Michele, the last of the Imperiali, died without children, the Duke of Monteiasi bought the estate, had the church of the Santo Crocifisso built and adapted the palace as a residence. At the beginning of the 19th century the name became Villa Castelli, on the model of Francavilla, of which it was a hamlet; it has been a municipality since 1926. The private website Mondi Medievali adds that the palace, renovated in 1926-28, is today the seat of the town hall, and mentions the Trappeto del Duca dug into the ravine and the crenellated 16th-century tower of the masseria Antoglia. In the territory there is also Pezza Petrosa, an archaeological site on whose dates the sources do not agree. The municipality is part of the Parco naturale regionale Terra delle Gravine. On the road to Francavilla, the Madonna dei Grani stands on a 12th-century Basilian grange.
Francavilla, unlike the others, has a founder. At the beginning of the 14th century it was willed by Philip I of Anjou, prince of Taranto and lord of Oria; tradition says that in 1332, while hunting a deer, the prince found near a fountain an image of the Virgin on a ruined wall. With the franchises the village of Villa San Salvatore became Franca Villa, then Francavilla d'Otranto, and from 1864 Francavilla Fontana, in memory of the icon of the Madonna della Fontana. Having passed in 1364 to Philip II of Anjou, it was surrounded by him with walls; the Borromeo and the Imperiali followed. Palazzo Imperiali sums it up: a square tower of 1455 by Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, three towers added in 1536, Imperiali restorations between 1701 and 1730 that made it a residence, with a Baroque loggia of four arches. In the courtyard remains the 14th-century baptismal font of the Angevin church, destroyed by the earthquake of 1743: the mother church of the Rosario was rebuilt between 1743 and 1759, with its dome clad in majolica. In contrada San Lorenzo, near the canale Reale, a Roman villa rustica of the end of the 1st century BC stood along the Via Appia: the road that tomorrow enters Oria.
Day 3 — Oria
Oria is seen from its acropolis, where Strabo, who said he had seen it, placed the royal palace of the Messapian city, where the bishop's palace stands today. Herodotus attributed its foundation to Cretans of Minos driven by a storm; the Province notes that it minted coins and that beneath the centre lies a necropolis from the 10th-9th century BC to the 3rd century AD, whose materials are partly in the Museo Nazionale di Taranto. In Roman times the Via Appia crossed it for over a kilometre in its northern part. The reason for its second life is someone else's destruction: at the end of the 9th century, after the Saracens had destroyed Brindisi, the episcopal see passed to Oria. Bishop Teodosio built on the acropolis a church for the bodies of saints Crisanto and Daria, obtained from Pope Stephen V in 886; rediscovered in 1822, it is considered the first local building covered by a dome. Since then the patron has been San Barsanofrio, a 6th-century Palestinian anchorite, whose relics arrived there at the end of the 9th century. The castle is Frederick II's, 1227-1233, triangular in plan, with the square tower of the Sperone and the cylindrical towers of the Cavaliere and of the Salto, these probably Angevin; the owners, the counts Martini Carissimo, according to the Province sheet from around 2001, kept there a collection of coins minted in Oria. The 18th-century cathedral stands on the remains of the Romanesque one. In August, according to the same sheet from around 2001, the Torneo dei Rioni (Castello, Giudea, Lama and San Basilio) and the Corteo storico in honour of Frederick II were held. Oria is linked to Francavilla: it belonged to the same Imperiali who ruled it, and the journey, in our proposal, ends here.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 13 defects corrected · not approved