centro storico, costiero, difensivo, portuale, Manfredonia, Sypontum Novellum (denominazione storica, 1272), Sipontum Nova (denominazione storica, 1272)

On a low spur above the Gulf of Manfredonia, this medieval borgo was conceived at speed. Its name commemorates Manfredi of Sicily, Frederick II’s son, who ordered the town built to house survivors from Siponto’s destruction in 1223; the official foundation date of 1263 left the king little time before his death in 1266 to realise his ambitious plan for city, port, walls and castle. The settlement is a consolidated town with natural and artificial boundaries: the SS89 to the north and north-west, the sea to the south and south-east. Its functions were, and remain, diverse: cult, production, craft, port, funerary and residential. The rectangular defensive wall, first documented in a 1277 contract with master Giordano di Monte Sant’Angelo, runs along three landward sides; on the coast it follows the rocky shoreline. Under the Aragonese, circular casemated towers and a ditch were added. The castle’s towers bear names like the Torrione delle Capre, later dell’Astrologo.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.