Gravina in Puglia
The toponym “Gravina” comes from ravines, cracks in the earth’s crust similar to canyons and dug by meteoric waters into the limestone rock.
Thanks to the strategic position of the various towns, Gravina can boast an ancient history, in fact its territory appears to have been inhabited since the ancient Paleolithic due to the high presence of water in the Gravina stream, while the most substantial remains date back to the Neolithic, since the 5950 BC
The oldest settlements have been identified in the districts of Botromagno (name of the hill where the ancient town developed). Then there was the Peucetian colonization, followed by the Greek one and the Roman conquest as confirmed by the evident archaeological excavations, the necropolis and the related funerary equipment.
Frederick II of Swabia reached Gravina in 1223 and elected it Gravina as the seat of the general curia for Puglia, Basilicata and Capitanata. He also had the castle built, completed in 1227, which was mainly used for hunting trips that the emperor used to carry out.
From 1267 to 1380 it was a fief of the Angevins. In 1294, Charles of Anjou restored the fair of San Giorgio di Gravina in Puglia, the oldest in Italy. In this same period, Gravina became a state and feudal city. In the thirteenth century came the monks of the knightly orders: Templars and Knights of Jerusalem, who were owners of houses and territories of great extension.
In the fourteenth century the Orsini of Rome became feudal lords. Francesco Orsini, prefect of Rome, raised the fief of Gravina in Puglia to a duchy. Gravina saw the birth, in 1649, of Pietro Francesco Orsini who was elected pope on 29 May 1724 with the name of Benedict XIII. The Orsini were lords from 1380 to 1816. During this long period of time the city suffered the arrogance of feudalism, the high clergy and the local oligarchy.
The situation worsened during the Bourbon period so that Gravina counted many revolutionaries and patriots from 1789 until the unification of Italy. It was the protagonist of the historical events of the early 1900s that concerned the First World War. In the municipal villa, today you can admire a monument to the fallen of ’15 -’18. Even in the second conflict the city was involved, being partially damaged by the bombing of German planes.
Historiographical notes indicate Gravina as a city of wheat and wine (“Grana Dat et Vina”: “offers wheat and wine”) as written in the coat of arms of the city, whose motto is attributed to Frederick II of Swabia. In the manuscripts present at the Ettore Pomarici Santomasi foundation, the writer Domenico Nardone mentioned the countryside of Gravina as one of the most fertile lands in the province that offers all kinds of products; of the same opinion was the emperor Frederick II of Swabia, who described Gravina as “garden of delights”.
