". . . He who looks around, embracing the beautiful Puglian countryside, splendid and irradiated by an azure Elysian sky, sees unfurled before him a truly unique theatre and, as in a mirror, sees concentrated and reflected all of the historical events of Southern Italy. Romans, Carthegians – down there one catches a glimpse of the fields of Canne, the location of the famous battle of Hannibal – Goths, Longobards, Saracens, Byzantines, Normans, the Crusaders – over there, from those coasts, they first set sail – the Hohenstaufens, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Spanish, the French: he can see all of these apparitions pass before his eyes, one by one, and see the facts and gestures that unite them! (Ferdinand  Gregorovius, an illustrious German historian from the 1800's)