A locus bitrictum, or vetrictum, is named from the eleventh century onward, and what that word meant is disputed: perhaps it alluded to a repeated destruction — bis tritum, destroyed twice — or else, and this is the more accredited thesis, to the presence of two towers. Neighbouring Bitetto, a few kilometres from here, has the same problem the other way round: one of its four etymologies is bis tectum, twice the roof. However the word stands, the castle is the town. It was born as the military fortress of the fortified casale of Vitrictum; the first written sources about it go back to 1070; it was founded in the Norman period, and the Swabians and the Angevins left their marks on it. In 1440 it depended directly on the archbishop of Bari, and for that reason, unlike the comuni around it, it was not touched by Aragonese rule. Today it has two towers, one circular and the other polygonal, and around the central atrium twelve rooms open — one of which is the council chamber, because that castle is now the town hall.
Bitritto was for a long time a place people left. The patronal feast falls on the first Tuesday of March, and for many families that day is the occasion to come back and be together. Then the movement reversed: between the nineteen eighties and the year two thousand the population doubled, because Bari was emptying outwards and it is less than ten kilometres from here to the city. The mother church stands on the plan of a temple of 1530 and is dedicated to Santa Maria di Costantinopoli and to San Michele arcangelo; the chapel of San Pietro is on a street that used to be called via Pagano and that joined the mulis vectabilis via per Peucetios, the mule road through the Peucetian country that Strabo names. The arms were recognised in 1935. And there is one line that says a great deal about this hinterland: the railway from Bari to Bitritto. Its original project is of 1986; the line was formally activated at the end of 2023, and the first commercial train ran on the eighth of January 2024. Thirty-eight years between the drawing and the train.
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📅 Every year, on the first Tuesday of March, an occasion for reunion for emigrated families
Bitritto celebrates Our Lady of Constantinople on the first Tuesday of March. A town of strong past emigration, the patronal feast represents an occasion for reunion for many families.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
