Polignano is the city of Domenico Modugno, known throughout the world for his unmistakable voice and for that Volare nel blu dipinto di blu.
It is no coincidence that for some years now, Polignano has also been the Italian city of Red Bull Cliff Diving, the world championship of acrobatic diving. A real flight of 27 meters, like diving from a 9-story building.
A regular event in the Polignano summer, with thousands of spectators waiting for the highest dives in the world.
A bit of history:
Polignano dates back to the Neolithic, the Manfredi hypogeum (4th millennium BC), is one of the oldest and most significant Neolithic settlements in Puglia. In the 2nd millennium BC, the landing of the Iapyges pushed the inhabitants of the villages to move to the area of the current historic center. The frequentation of these places by Corinthian and Attic merchants is also attested, when the land of Bari took the name of Peucezia.
In the 6th century, Polignano was part of the Byzantine Empire but the town's prestige grew with the arrival of the Normans, thanks also to the work of the Benedictines, present with two monasteries.
The Angevin domination made trade relations with other coastal centers even more intense and many businessmen and merchants, including Venetians, settled permanently in Polignano. The brief Venetian experience of Monopoli in the 16th century will also concern Polignano for about twenty years.
Even today, the Doge's Palace, where the Venetian governor resided, is still present in the historic center. In 1530, Venice ceded Polignano to Charles V, Emperor of Spain. From that moment on, until the Unification of Italy, the dominion was maintained by the Spanish royal family.
What to see:
The mother church dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta overlooks the small Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, the heart of the historic center. It houses works by the sculptor Stefano da Putignano, active between the 16th and 17th centuries, and a polyptych of the Madonna with Child and Saints, from the 15th century on a gilded panel by Bartolomeo Vivarini. Inside the church are kept some relics of San Vito, a fragment of the Arm and the Knee Cap.
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