Lucera (crossroads of Daunia)

LUCERA 

Crossroads of Daunia

Lucera, the oldest   city of the Capitanata, is located close to the Subappennino Dauno and Gargano and stands on a high ground formed by three hills, dominating the view of the Tavoliere.

It was founded by Lacero, son of Dauno II.

On Mount Albano we can find the remains of Neolithic villages of the third millennium. a.C., as well as the remains of the Bronze Age and Iron Age.

Before dauna, then Samnite (320 BC.), it was conquered by the Romans (319 BC.) becoming an important Roman colony, with the right to issue its own coins, to have their own laws and magistrates. During this period in Lucera were built several temples to the gods of the Romans.

In the year 802 a.D. Lucera was conquered by Charlemagne, and later was burned by Constantine ... and from there began a dark period of decline, which lasted for five centuries.

With the arrival of Frederick II  it flourished again. He wanted to make it the imperial city and built a large castle on the ruins of the ancient Roman necropolis.

In this period, in order to better control, he did get to the Lucera Saracens deported from Sicily: it became a Saracen citadel, where the deportees could perform activities of manufacturers of carpets, curtains, ceramics, and farmers could follow their religion and build mosques. The "Luceria Saracenorum" took over the few remaining Christians.

But, when it passed from the domination of the Swabians to the Angevins, the Saracens were defeated (specifically on the date of August 14, 1300), the mosques were destroyed and in their place built some new churches, including the Cathedral.

Charles of Anjou changed its name to the City of Santa Maria, but Pope Urban VI in 1304 already gave back the name Luceria Christianorum.

After being commanded by the Decurionate 1407, a council of ten citizens chosen from among the various segments of society, the sixteenth century was under Spanish rule.

Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century riots, some disastrous earthquakes and new external attacks put the city several times on his knees, but it always tried to recover by rebuilding the churches, buildings ...

In the nineteenth century it lost even more of its historical importance, so that was Foggia  to become the Province capital of the Tavoliere, in its place. It was the Napoleonic period.

Soon a cholera epidemic took its victims.

Politically there were many changes, and with other victims of the nineteenth century the city paid its pledge for the Unification of Italy, and later, in  the pangs of hunger, even that of the World Wars.

Today is a quiet town that lives mainly in its agricultural industry, with its richness of farms, olive groves, vineyards, wheat and vegetables, but it bears within it, in the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre, the Castle, the Cathedral and in the various Churches the signs of a past  rich in history.

WHAT TO SEE

                              ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE

Located in Viale Augusteo, to the east of the city, it dates back to the period between 27 BC and 14 d. C., ie the Augustan age, and was in fact built by Judge Marco Vecilio Field, on his land, in honor of Augustus.

He was repeatedly sacked over the centuries and is almost entirely filled, but it was brought to light by the excavations of 1932.

In addition to the steps, on which now held cultural events, theater and music, very beautiful are the two portals in stone of Apricena adorned with precious ornaments.

 

THE FREDERICIAN CASTLE

 

The Castle of Lucera was built by Frederick II on the top of Mount Albano, where already stood before the ancient Roman acropolis.

Palatium

He had built there in 1233 his Palatium (square-shaped, rose on three floors around a courtyard also square), while the wall that turned it into a real fortress was built by Charles of Anjou.

The main entrance is connected to the avenue overlooking a bridge over a moat.
The wall runs around the entire hill and is 900 meters long: it  consists of 13 square towers, two pentagonal bastions, 7 buttresses and two cylindrical towers, called the Lion and Lioness.

 

 

Inside various ruins in a vast space leave much to the imagination as to what the fort was in his time: in fact, the castle was damaged by an earthquake in 1456 and was almost demolished in the eighteenth century and the material was used to build the Court . The first restoration works date back to the nineteenth century.

THE CATHEDRAL

 

The Cathedral of St. Maria Assunta in Piazza Duomo, dates back to 300 and is a national monument since 1864. It was commissioned by Charles of Anjou after the expulsion of the Saracens from Lucera.

 
The style is Gothic-Byzantine, with Latin cross plan and three naves, but it included baroque elements due to a more recent renovation.

Inside you will keep the fourteenth-century icon of the patron saint of Lucera, that of Santa Maria, as well as a wooden Christ of the fifteenth century, a number of eighteenth-century frescoes and altars in polychrome marble.

CATHEDRAL SQUARE is surrounded by old buildings.

A mention, even though I could not see him in person, I want to make it to the FIORELLI CIVIC MUSEUM, where  there are several archaeological finds and medieval bronzes, coins, and an art gallery with paintings by Neapolitan artists.

Also to see along the way, the cupola of St. Antonio Abate that is the cupola of an ancient mosque.