Barletta

The first thing you see walking into central Barletta is the Colossus — a bronze statue over five metres tall, standing on a plinth beside the Basilica del Santo Sepolcro, depicting a late Roman or early Byzantine emperor, most likely from the fourth or fifth century, in full imperial regalia, one arm raised. Nobody is entirely certain which emperor it depicts — theories range across several late-antique rulers — and the more commonly told local story is that the statue was being transported by sea, possibly looted from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, when the ship carrying it wrecked off the Barletta coast sometime in the thirteenth century, and the bronze giant washed ashore and simply stayed. Whatever the truth, it has stood in this town for close to eight hundred years, patched together at points with lead where medieval Franciscan monks reportedly melted down some of its original fragments for bells before realizing what they had.

Barletta’s castle, expanded significantly under the Normans and then Frederick II in the thirteenth century, sits at the edge of the old town facing the sea, a squat, powerful structure that later hosted Spanish viceroys and today functions as a museum and event space. I climbed onto the ramparts on a clear afternoon and looked out at the Adriatic, then back at the dense old town crowding up against the castle walls, and felt the particular satisfaction of a place that wears its many occupiers’ architecture without apparent conflict — Roman colossus, Norman-Swabian castle, Aragonese fortifications, all coexisting within a few hundred metres.

The Cantina della Sfida, tucked beneath the old town, commemorates something more specific to Italian pride: the Disfida di Barletta, a 1503 duel between thirteen Italian knights and thirteen French knights, fought after a French officer insulted Italian military honour during the Italian Wars. The Italians won decisively, and the event became a foundational patriotic myth, still referenced in Italian political and sporting rhetoric over five centuries later — I’ve heard football commentators invoke “la disfida di Barletta” completely unironically. The cellar where the challenge was reportedly issued is preserved as a small museum, low-ceilinged and atmospheric, and the caretaker recounted the whole story to me with the intensity of someone describing an event from his own lifetime rather than five hundred years prior.

I ate that evening at a small place near the harbour serving the local specialty of seppie alla barlettana, cuttlefish stewed with tomato and wine, alongside a carafe of a rough, honest red from the Castel del Monte DOC zone just inland, and walked afterward along the seafront promenade as the evening passeggiata filled it, the Colossus visible in silhouette a few streets back, doing what it has apparently done for eight centuries regardless of who was watching.

When to go: Spring or early autumn for comfortable walking weather along the seafront and through the old town. Late February brings the Disfida di Barletta historical reenactment, if the pageantry appeals.