Roccaforzata stands on the highest hill of the Serra di Sant'Elia, at 145 metres, its old core right on the edge of the drop, and it has changed its name twice: in the Middle Ages it was Rocca-vecchia, in the seventeenth century Rocca-nuova, and only in the early nineteenth century did it become Roccaforzata, after the rocky site that made it almost impregnable. The fief first appears in 1315.
What matters came in the fifteenth century with the Albanians. Ferdinand of Aragon had called in the troops of George Kastrioti Skanderbeg to put down the rebel barons, and after the victory he let those soldiers settle in the kingdom's half-empty centres: in the Taranto area six of them were reborn — Roccaforzata, San Giorgio Jonico, Faggiano, Monteparano, Fragagnano and San Marzano — in what became the third Albanian migration to Italy. In 1507 the fief was granted for military service to an Albanian commander, Lazzaro Mathes. But the community was assimilated: in the sixteenth century the archbishop of Taranto, Lelio Brancaccio, turned the Albanian parish from the Greek to the Latin rite and had the other Albanian church closed, and the language died out in the nineteenth century. Today, of those six villages, Arbëresh is spoken only at San Marzano. On the coat of arms, above the castle and the sea, there is a black scorpion.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 19 July
On 19 July Roccaforzata, a municipality of 1,823 inhabitants in the province of Taranto, celebrates its patrons the Madonna della Camera and Saint Elijah (Sant'Elia).
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.
Outside Roccaforzata, but an easy day trip away.
