Santeramo in Colle

It is the highest town in the metropolitan area of Bari, and its countryside reads like a dictionary: the lame ravines, the jazzi sheepfolds, the sinkholes, the corti farmyards, the dry-stone walls known here as parate, the little trulli called casédde. The territory splits into three: the woodland towards Bari, where the oak groves have almost vanished under farmland; the limestone Murge that cross it from south to north; and the Matine towards Matera, the once marshy plain where the wheat grows. Until 1863 it was called simply Santeramo, and in the thirteenth century Frederick II listed it among his domus, the fortified royal residences: in the imperial survey on castle repairs, the whole of Terra di Bari counted only three, and one of them was right here.

A fief of the Carafa from 1468 and then of the Caracciolo until feudalism was abolished, Santeramo still lives today off livestock farming, above all horses, so much so that it is known throughout the area as the city of horse meat. The feast of the patron saint Erasmus, at the start of June, parades ladies and knights in period costume behind a triumphal cart bearing the saint's image, and closes with a choreographed fireworks display; since 1968 the same date has also marked the Ripa prize, scholarships set up by the family of that name for philanthropic merit. The town lies inside the Alta Murgia national park, with 26,770 inhabitants.