centro storico, portuale, difensivo, Polignano a Mare

Polignano a Mare perches on the cliffs of the Adriatic, its historic centre a consolidated town shaped by natural and artificial boundaries. The old quarter, exposed to the east, mixes residential, artisanal and religious functions within a fortified defensive layout. The earliest traces of settlement here date back to the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, but the town’s name suggests a Greek origin, perhaps a sub-colony of Syracuse, a Peucetian Neapolis founded around the fourth century BC. Under Rome, it became a statio on the Via Traiana, a staging post for grain and goods bound for Brindisi and the East. The site was fortified in the tenth century, a response to the insecurities of the Byzantine era, and later passed through Norman, Angevin, Aragonese and Venetian hands. What remains is a place of long memory: a cliffside borgo where layers of history are written into the very alignment of its streets and the thickness of its walls.

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