From Bari: Castel del Monte & Trani – Puglia's Two Medieval Masterpieces

Castel del Monte stands alone on a limestone hilltop 540 metres above sea level — visible for miles across the Puglia plain, with no town, village or other building nearby. The octagonal plan is mathematically perfect: eight sides, eight towers, eight trapezoidal rooms on each of the two floors, eight sides to the interior courtyard. Every measurement is a multiple of eight. The solar alignments are precise: at the spring and autumn equinoxes, sunlight enters specific windows and illuminates specific rooms in a pattern that cannot be accidental. The guide covers Frederick II — arguably the most remarkable ruler of medieval Europe: Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, fluent in Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, German and Italian, who conducted his crusade via negotiation rather than battle (recovering Jerusalem through a treaty that horrified the Pope) and wrote the first scientific study of falconry, 'De Arte Venandi cum Avibus'. What the castle was actually for remains unknown.

Trani is one of the most beautiful medieval port cities in southern Italy — built entirely of the warm golden limestone unique to this part of Puglia, its medieval streets and seafront unchanged since the Crusader era. The Cathedral of San Nicola Pellegrino was built between 1094 and 1197 directly on the sea wall, its western facade facing the Adriatic and its tower reflected in the harbour waters. The cathedral is one of the finest examples of Apulian Romanesque architecture: its bronze doors, cast in 1175 by Barisano da Trani, are among the most important medieval metalwork in Italy. The guide covers Trani's extraordinary medieval history: a major Crusader embarkation port where Frederick II departed for the Holy Land in 1228, and a city with a significant Jewish community whose 13th-century synagogue (now the Church of Santa Anna) is the oldest standing synagogue in Europe.