Pierre Cardin Suitcase Combination Lock

Otranto - Charm Only Eastern

name

From the Romans was called Hydruntum Otranto, from the river Hydro (Hydrus) which flows near the city.

According to the best hypothesis derives its name from the greek kai UDOR derento, "water and mountain."

History

V • sec. BC, Otranto in time messapica already has a wall, a city gate and funerary stelae. The archaeological findings testify to the rich and often trade with Greece, Crete and all the civilizations of the Mediterranean. Ancient sources attribute the foundation to Cretan settlers. •
IV sec., With the splitting Roman Empire, Otranto team adheres to the East: Constantinople installs its officials and the city's role becomes important, so that most of Puglia, Calabria and Basilicata are named after the town of Otranto. Dead Justinian in the sixth century. Justin created the Duchy of Otranto. But it is in the ninth century. With the Byzantine conquest of Italy, Otranto, based on the landing of the imperial troops, begins to live its most prosperous period, making the store into which the trade with the East. •
845, Otranto is invaded by the Turks for the first time and released by Ludwig II in 867. The successive invasions of 918, 924 and 928 manages to successfully resist.
• 1040, the residents welcome the Normans, but back in 1061 the Byzantines. In 1068 the city passed definitively to the Normans. In 1071 Robert Guiscard from Otranto direct part in the East to fight the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. In 1088 the cathedral was consecrated. In 1101 Venice besieged Otranto. •
1227, Emperor Frederick II set sail from Otranto to join the crusade. •
1440, the Aragonese entering Otranto. In 1449 the Venetian fleet that attacked the city suffered serious damage. In 1463, there are other contrasts with Venice, in 1480, promotes or at least not contrary to the intervention of the Turkish siege to take the city. •
1480, Muhammad II instructs the operation Otranto against Ahmed Pasha. The attack from the sea destroying the fortifications and opened a breach in the city, which is captured on August 12. The turkish commander gathers eight hundred inhabitants, all able-bodied men, and requires them to choose between the Muslim faith or death. All eight hundred are beheaded on the hill of Minerva. Their skulls are preserved in the cathedral. The following year, Ferdinand of Aragon free the city and the arming of new fortifications. •
1496-1508, is occupied by the Venetians. In 1535, underwent a new siege of the Turks, but this time resist, as in 1537, 1614 and 1644. In 1671, he landed in Otranto, the squadron of the Knights of Malta and the year after the city becomes, until to 1715, the residence of the consuls of Ragusa and Venice.
• 1744, Charles III of Bourbon makes a square fortified Otranto. •
1801, Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's brother, is the Duke of Otranto.

The mosaic in the cathedral and eight hundred skulls

You enter the walled city through the Porta Alfonsina, who, with the towers of the walls - the Duchesca the Hippolyta and the south-west - offers an example of military architecture, fortification of the fruit of the new city built by the Aragonese in 1480 after the Turkish devastation.

In Old Town, walking softly on paved roads of rock, and the alleys leading to the sea, the blinding light of the Mediterranean, the intersection with the balls of granite mortars and Saracens of the bastions, making visible the words of Cotroneo Roberto: Otranto "is a collapsed star where c 'is the whole universe, where there is the daily life and history, where the years go by and not everything seems to penetrate where it is easy for you to talk about ghosts in the streets, and everyone knows where you are in a different place where time curve in on itself, not a straight line, and curving folds.

Here, then, immersed in the "stop time" of this town, facing the small Byzantine Basilica of St. Peter (XII-XI), which calls, with projected volumes of the three circular apses, to be walked outside with a full circle. Inside is a collection of paintings and Byzantine Greek cross. Among his eight columns seem to hear the music of the breeze, and a long, contemplative prayer. The diary pages on the Byzantine unrolls its carpet of days, and a carpet, drapery East, like the magnificent mosaic floor of the Cathedral (1088), the "lady of Otranto" - as he called Maria Corti -, the highest expression of the Romanesque Puglia. In his simple stone casket straw - which stand outside the beautiful rose window in Gothic style and the Arab-portal seventeenth century (1674) - includes a three-nave interior, punctuated by fourteen granite columns surmounted by Roman capitals.

Beneath the apse there is a crypt, with Byzantine paintings on the walls and 68 columns from the beautiful capitals linked by cross vaults. In the apse of the right aisle are preserved the remains of the 800 people massacred by Ahmed Pasha in 1480 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
The church floor is covered with a beautiful mosaic (1166) in which there are three main areas: the tree of life that goes from the nave to the two sides, the mosaic floor, just below the altar of the transept, the figures arranged around the ancient circular altar.

The Tree of Life is supported by two elephants and ends with Adam and Eve. On the right of the elephants are the players of Oliphant, the wrestlers on the left. All around, the figures are inspired by the Breton cycle of the Roman d'Alexandre. From the transept altar, the mosaic is shaped like an oriental carpet in the round and shows the months with the zodiac signs. Among the figures around the main altar there is a sequence (from the Bible) that predicts the destruction of Jonah to Nineveh, a winged and feathered serpent crushing a deer, Samson kills the lion, a monkey and a baboon eating a apple while a deer looks on.

You can then devote to the visit of Castello Aragonese (1485-89), built by Ferdinand of Aragon incorporating the fortifications and the Swabian improvements of the Turks who had occupied the city for more than a year in the fateful 1480. Surrounded by a moat, has a pentagonal, and three cylindrical towers on the sea side, a bastion sharp spear. On the bastion, there are the arms of Antonio de Mendoza and Don Pedro da Toledo, the main entrance stands the coat of arms of Charles V.

The remains of the Abbey of St. Nicola di Casole are within a mile from the center of Otranto. Ancient Basilian monastery (XII century), destroyed by the Turks in 1480, lies along the coast road to Santa Maria di Leuca. Today little remains of what was a magnificent monument, as well as a valuable cultural center, whose manuscripts are preserved in the most important museums in the world.

The monastic presence in Otranto was strengthened by the arrival of monks following the army of Belisarius (535-553), inspired by the teachings of St. Basil and were thus the root of what would become Italo-greek monasticism.

remains to be seen, finally, the underground messapico in the Valley of Memories.

The product of the village

The extra virgin olive oil from Salento is among the best in Italy.

Among the many DOC wines, we highlight the Alezio, the Cupertino and Salice Salentino.

Local dishes in the kitchen

Otranto meet the country tradition and the sea. The recipes are simple and not elaborate.

Orecchiette, for example, are made with sauce or topped with ricotta forte.

also requires the fish to be cooked without frills: the octopus is good boiled, fried or pignata (in a traditional earthenware pot), fish soup, spaghetti with mussels.