Foggia · Carapelle · Orta Nova · Ordona · FG
Four municipalities of the province of Foggia, in the Tavoliere; the portal italia.it places Foggia at its centre. The thread we propose is a change in the use of the land. Foggia was the seat of the Dogana della mena delle pecore, which obliged the flocks to winter in the Tavoliere; Carapelle, Orta Nova and Ordona are three of the farming villages that the Ministry of Culture's records link to the “reali siti”, colonies of peasants born on lands and farmsteads that had belonged to the Jesuits. Among the sources read, a tratturo appears in only one of these towns, Orta Nova. In the background remains the ancient city of Herdonia, near Ordona. It is a journey for those who love reading towns in their plans and their documents, more than in their monuments.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Foggia
Foggia lies, according to the Ministry of Culture's record on its historic centre, at about 70 metres above the sea, in the lowest hollow between the Celone stream and the Cervaro river. The name appears in 1090 as “Sancte Marie de Fogia”, and the name of the city coincides with that of its icon: a study by the University of Foggia recalls that the panel venerated in the cathedral was called Santa Maria de Focis or de Fogia, then Iconavetere and, from the 18th century, Madonna dei Sette Veli. According to the legend, some shepherds, drawn by bulls kneeling by a pond in the Tavoliere, found a painted panel there; the first written account, the study observes, dates only from 1669, and the examination of 21 October 1980 pointed to a panel probably of the 11th-12th century, of local workmanship and not Constantinopolitan. A turning point comes from an earthquake. That of 1731 was the most severe, according to the Ministry; a diocesan message of 2012 recalls that it brought down the cathedral, rebuilt in Baroque forms, while the five-aisled crypt preserves Romanesque forms. After the quake the city moved out of the walls, which had five gates; one survives, incorporated in Palazzo Arpi. Inside it, since 1966, is the Museo Civico, near the site of the palace of Frederick II, as the municipality writes: finds from Arpi and Ordona, the mosaics of the Casa dei Leoni e delle Pantere, a lapidarium of sculptures that escaped the bombing of 1943, paintings of Bourbon Foggia and the costumes of the Capitanata. The municipality gives its opening hours as Tuesday-Saturday 9-13, Tuesday and Thursday also 16-19, first and third Sunday 9-13 (hours from the municipal page, to be rechecked before the visit). Foggia was also, for the State Archive, the seat of the Regia Dogana della Mena delle Pecore, established by Alfonso of Aragon: flocks of more than twenty head had to winter in the Tavoliere, along tratturi, grassy tracks up to 111 metres wide. Having fallen into crisis in the 18th century, the Dogana was abolished in 1806. The Villa comunale in piazza Cavour is a garden about a thousand metres long, with a pronaos of 1827, destroyed in the war and rebuilt in 1950. The next day one goes to Carapelle, one of the colonies that the Bourbons founded in the Tavoliere while the Dogana was still in existence.
Day 2 — Carapelle and Orta Nova
Carapelle can be read from its plan: the ministerial record describes it as a “planned, grid-pattern, agricultural” layout, at 62 metres, near the stream of the same name. In 1774 it was a nucleus “with houses and a church”, born from the land reclamation of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, where the Jesuits already had a well and a shelter for animals. The study by Giuseppe Poli for the University of Bari does the sums: 56 families, ten versure each; the rent, as in the other colonies, was 1.80 ducats per versura, with renewable 29-year contracts. In 1793, according to the Ministry, the colony was ceded to the Foggia marquis Lorenzo Filiasi, and in the 19th century palazzi replaced the peasants' houses. At the centre stands the church of the B.V.M. del Rosario, from the end of the 18th century, later rebuilt with the façade moved. The town became a municipality only in 1958.
Orta Nova has a longer history. Its ministerial record attests in 1184 a casale of the abbey of the SS. Trinità of Venosa. The link with the Dogana lies in the Atlante delle Locazioni, which the record calls “functional to the Dogana della mena delle pecore” and where the fief appears in the Aragonese period; in the 17th century it passed to the Jesuits, who built monumental buildings there. Here the tratturo enters the town: for the Ministry the 19th-century settlement is laid out along corso Aldo Moro, corso Umberto I and via Foria, which for the Ministry follows the route of the royal tratturo, with an irregular course, and along them one meets courtyard palazzi such as Campese, Papa-Traisci and Mascitelli. Poli counts 105 families of colonists after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, and reports the judgement of R. Ciasca: many were poor and soon left the land. The next day one climbs a little, towards the first hills.
Day 3 — Ordona and Herdonia
Ordona lies at about 120 metres, on the first hills of the Tavoliere, and takes its name, says the ministerial record, from Herdonia, a few kilometres away. The oldest core turns around a square with the grain pits, among single-storey rural terraced houses and the church of San Leone, rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century. The fief passed in 1608 to the Collegio Romano of the Jesuits; after their expulsion Ferdinand IV established one of the reali siti there, but many tenants did not pay and the colony was sold to private owners. Poli reports that in March 1791 Giuseppe Maria Galanti slept in the inn, formerly the Jesuits', and noted that in summer the air was considered unhealthy, because the Carapelle overflowed in winter and left pools until summer. Ordona has been an autonomous municipality since 1975. The Museo Herdonia, inaugurated on 26 April 2017 in via Pasculli Soldato, presents itself as the gateway to the archaeological park, with a digital catalogue of 50 finds in 3D; the opening hours are not on the page. The hill of Herdonia was, for the municipality's website, a Daunian settlement of the 4th-3rd century BC and then a Roman municipium. Its amphitheatre, according to the Ministry's record, was built around the middle of the 1st century AD and dismantled in late antiquity, when dwellings rose over the entrances; a small hoard of 148 gold coins of Muslim type and one Byzantine coin was found there, dated to 1020-1030. The excavations, begun in 1962, have left an area that the 2022 agreement between the Soprintendenza and the municipality described as “scarcely visible” and “lacking infrastructure for its public use”, with one million euros earmarked for the park. The state of the works is not known: the visit should be checked with the museum. The journey, in our proposal, ends at Ordona, from which some of the finds in the Museo Civico of Foggia also come.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 16 defects corrected · not approved