Manduria · Sava · Maruggio · Avetrana · TA
Four municipalities of the eastern Taranto area, all within the production zone of Primitivo di Manduria according to the DOC production specification (text read in a copy, with amendments up to 2014), and a Messapian city at the centre. This is the thread, and it is best stated honestly: archaeology, in the official sources, is all in Manduria, where the Ministry of Culture records three circuits of walls and a necropolis of more than twelve hundred tombs. Sava, Maruggio and Avetrana tell something else: fiefs, an order of knights, an oil mill dug into the rock, a border that a local document describes as contested over salt. Wine links the places as a denomination and as a landscape of vineyards, not as history documented town by town.
At a glance
Duration. 4 days.
The route
Day 1 — Manduria, the three circuits
The Parco archeologico delle Mura Messapiche lies in piazza Scegnu, in the north-eastern part of the town. The Ministry of Culture's record describes there three circuits of walls with two ditches between the inner ones and an outer perimeter of 3382 metres. Manduria, the same record recalls, was a Messapian centre which together with Oria controlled the territory and the routes towards Taranto. The Park's website recounts the sieges: Taranto, with Archidamus king of Sparta, besieged the city without success, and Archidamus died beneath the walls in 338 BC; according to the Ministry the outer circuit was probably built after that siege. Then came Hannibal, who took the city in 212 BC, and Quintus Fabius Maximus, who retook it in 209, carrying off, writes the Park, 3,000 prisoners. In the Park one can also see the remains of the necropolis: more than twelve hundred pit tombs covered with stone slabs, excavated by Nevio Degrassi between 1955 and 1960. The detail to look for is the Fonte Pliniano, which the ministerial record puts in the foreground: a cave about eighteen metres in diameter, reached by a ramp cut into the rock, with a skylight in the vault and, outside, the civic coat of arms, an almond tree inside a well; the name refers to Pliny the Elder and his Naturalis Historia. On the north-western edge stands the small church of San Pietro Mandurino, with a frescoed crypt made in an ancient tomb; the Park's website reports it closed for consolidation works. The Park's opening hours need checking: the sources read do not agree. The next day one looks for the grave goods of those tombs.
Day 2 — Manduria in town, then Sava
The second morning begins in corso XX Settembre, in the former Augustinian convent that houses the Museo Archeologico “Manduria, Terra di Messapi”: according to the museum's website it displays the grave goods of the necropolises and the finds from the areas of the settlement, and visits are booked in advance. After the Messapians the city had a history of contractions: the ministerial record writes that in the Roman period the settlement shrank but survived thanks to the via Sallentina, and that, destroyed in the early Middle Ages, it was refounded in the 11th century under the name of Casalnuovo. The portal italia.it mentions the mother church and the palazzo Imperiali-Filotico, and recalls that Pliny called this land “viticulosa”. The 20th century has two museums: the Museo Civico in via Omodei, inaugurated in 2018 as a memorial of the American presence at the Manduria Military Airport, with a photographic exhibition on the reception of refugees from Trentino in the Great War; and the Casa Museo Elisa Springer, recently inaugurated and dedicated to the writer and witness of the Shoah, open on special days.
In the afternoon one reaches Sava, which the Ministry's record links to the diocese of Oria. The heart is piazza San Giovanni, with the 17th-century mother church of San Giovanni Battista, remodelled in the 18th century, and the former Palazzo Baronale of the Prato, from the 16th century, now the seat of the town hall; in the old nucleus there is also the 16th-century church of Mater Domini. From 1741 to 1794, the record recalls, the fief belonged to the Jesuits, and in the 19th century the streets were straightened. In the semi-underground oil mill of the Palazzo Comunale, dug into the rock, is the Museo dell'Olio: the museum's website describes three vertical millstones moved by donkeys or mules, the presses “alla genovese” with the olive paste in rope fiscoli and the channels towards the tanks where the oil separated from the dregs. According to Città dell'Olio it was mainly lampante oil, exported from the port of Gallipoli for lighting. It can be visited by booking. The following day one goes down towards the sea.
Day 3 — Maruggio and the dunes of Campomarino
Maruggio announces itself with piazza del Popolo and with the Palazzo dei Commendatori, which the Ministry of Culture's record calls the castle of the Knights of Malta and dates to 1368, built against the ancient walls, of which visible stretches remain. The building bears the mark of the order that held the town: according to the FAI the Knights of Malta remained there for about five centuries. The ministerial record registers the autonomous municipality in 1819. The FAI points out on the façade a triptych with the coat of arms and arms of a Grand Master. The fief, adds the Ministry, also passed under the administration of the prince of Taranto Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo. The centre, about three hectares of narrow, winding streets, holds the mother church dedicated to the Natività di Maria Vergine and two palazzi, the Caniglia of the 17th century and the Covelli-de Marco of the 18th century; in 1811, the record notes, the town was still called Maruggi. The FAI places it in a valley of olive groves and vineyards at the foot of the Murge Tarantine, about two kilometres from the Ionian. On the coast, in its page on Maruggio, the portal italia.it points to high sand dunes and the Parco delle Dune di Campomarino, a site of community importance. From that shore the last day heads towards a border.
Day 4 — Avetrana and Torre Colimena
Avetrana is, in the words of Città dell'Olio, “the last bulwark of the province of Taranto”, and here the account grows shorter because no official source read reconstructs its history. The portal italia.it describes narrow alleys with courtyard houses and underground oil mills; there also remain the ruins of a castle, the Torrione, whose dating changes from source to source. Città dell'Olio sets the first certain records at 1307. The main festival, again according to italia.it, is the procession of Sant'Antonio da Padova with carts laden with wheat and costumed figures, closed by a dance of horses. According to a document by an unnamed author, hosted on the platform of Avetrana's municipal websites, the town has no coast; the same document cites a manuscript of 1678 on the “Reggie Saline di Avetrana” and reconstructs a long dispute with Manduria over tower and salt pans, with conflicting documents already in 1582. About five kilometres to the south, again according to that document, lies Torre Colimena. On its ownership the sources do not agree: italia.it gives it today as a locality of the municipality of Manduria; the Avetrana document maintains that tower and salt pans historically fell within the territory of Avetrana. The portal italia.it attributes the coastal tower to Charles V and describes the nearby Palude del Conte, separated from the sea by a belt of dunes and a stopover for migratory birds. Città dell'Olio recalls that in 1547 Turkish troops landed precisely at Torre Columena. The journey, in our proposal, ends here, on the line where the salt was contested.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 14 defects corrected · not approved