Historical Notes
A SUMMARY
Fasano derives from the Casale di Santa Maria di Fajano (Sancta Maria de Fajano), founded in 1088 by a part of the population that had abandoned the ruins of Egnazia, one of the most important centers located on the ancient Via Traiana with its important port. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire the city of Egnazia was progressively abandoned. The emigrants took refuge in small rock villages, founding several hamlets throughout the Fasano and Monopoli areas. In the meantime Egnazia was repeatedly sacked by the various invaders who took turns in Puglia.
In the 14th century it became a fiefdom of the Knights of Malta, and in 1450 it reached 500 inhabitants, counting 54 families.
On June 2, 1678, the people of Fasano experienced a memorable event: the Victory against the Turks. It is said that the Madonna appeared in the sky to lead the opposition of the people of Fasano against the Turkish pirates, who landed at night with the intent of plundering the city. The moment of glory, from that day on, is remembered every year with La Scamiciata, on the occasion of the Feast of the Patron Saints: San Giovanni Battista and Santa Maria di Pozzo Faceto.
The cult of the Madonna del Pozzo is linked to a legend: it is said that some farmers, while digging a well in a small farmhouse (near the current hamlet of Pozzo Faceto) with the Sanctuary, miraculously found the image of the Madonna painted on a stone. With the destruction of the farmhouse of “Puteo Faceto” in the 16th century, the inhabitants of this farmhouse moved to the town of Fasano bringing with them the cult of Maria SS.MA di Pozzo Faceto. In the second half of the 18th century, the Madonna of Pozzo Faceto was proclaimed Protector of Fasano, a polychrome stone statue was made which today is inserted into a niche of Palazzo Gaito and constantly looks at the sea; this is to symbolize her protection from the dangers that come from the sea. In the second half of the eighteenth century Fasano recovered quickly and had about 7,000 inhabitants, and in 1799 it also contributed to the Neapolitan Revolution with Ignazio Ciaia, who for a few days, before the conclusion, was one of the pillars that supported the fate of the Republic in Naples.
During the twenty years of fascism, Fasano experienced significant urban and infrastructural development: many important buildings were built, such as the elementary school I Circolo "Collodi" and the municipal villa, and the Town Hall was renovated and transformed. In 1927, the province of Brindisi was established, obtained from the southern part of the then province of Bari, of which Fasano was a part, and from the northern part of the Province of Lecce. Also during the Fascist period, the cross of the Knights of Malta was removed from the municipal coat of arms, only to be restored with the advent of the Republic.
During the 1960s and 1970s Fasano experienced another important urban development, thanks above all to various political figures of the time, until today it is a tourist city with a great agricultural and artisan tradition.
the ruins of Egnazia
Sanctuary of the Madonna of Pozzo Faceto
EGNAZIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK
Little information about Egnazia (Gnathia) is provided to us, among others, by the Greek geographer Strabo, at the end of the 1st century BC, and by the Latin poet Horace, who passed through it in 38 BC, on the occasion of his famous journey from Rome to Brindisi (Satires I. 5). From the ancient authors, as well as from later itinerant sources, we are informed almost only of the position of Egnazia; on the sea, on the border between Peucezia (the land of Bari) and Messapia (now Salento), halfway between Bari and Brindisi along what was already one of the road axes of the region in ancient times. The oldest human presence in the area dates back to the late Bronze Age (15th-12th century BC), represented by groups of huts scattered along the coast but also inland. The thickest and most durable part of the settlement, defended by a stone wall at least on the land side, extended over that small peninsula destined to transform over time into a hill (acropolis) due to the subsequent stratification of the buildings. The layout of the walls, almost two kilometers long, dates back to the “Messapian” phase, perhaps as early as the end of the 5th century BC, and protected the city in a semicircle on the land side, while their extension along the coast seems to have been built only to the north of the acropolis. The city walls, evidently built over a long period of time and rebuilt or reinforced several times, have a different appearance, despite the constant technique of square blocks. In the northern corner, the best known and the only one preserved up to the original height of seven meters, two clearly distinct phases can be recognized, with the later one having incorporated the pre-existing moat. Pre-Roman tombs were also found within the walls, but it is beyond them that the real Messapian necropolises extended, where burials continued with different rites for centuries (western necropolis). It was precisely following the discovery, in the last century, of the rich grave goods from these Messapian tombs that a category of vases was conventionally called “Egnazia ceramics” (a definition now in international use); vases characterized by the decoration overpainted in white, yellow and red on the black paint and by motifs of prevalent vegetal inspiration. The Hellenistic-style arrangement given to the area at the foot of the acropolis, where one can recognize, beneath the more recent buildings, a whole system of porticoes that must have overlooked a large irregular square (agora), dates back to approximately the same period. In the same area is the monumental center of the city formed after Romanization (a chronological reference is represented by the deduction, in 244 BC, of the nearby Latin colony of Brindisi): the civil basilica, the shrine of the oriental divinities, the so-called amphitheater, the forum; while the residential quarters, with productive and perhaps food-producing structures such as a furnace and a probable underground cereal depot (cryptoporticus), developed on the other side of the Via Traiana.
and the story continues......
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