Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli Ricevimenti

The Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli is located on a road that since Roman times has constituted the most important artery of the Daunia: the Appia Traiana. This is the construction of the first military road built by the Romans in 312 BC, definitively settled and declared public in 109 by the emperor Trajan from whom it took its name. It became the main artery through which Rome firmly assured the dominion of Campania and determined a greater economic vitality to the cities placed along its path.

Immediately after the construction of the Appia Traiana, others followed: La Flaminia, La Valeria, La Cassia, The Aurelia. These roads were not used exclusively for military purposes, but also to develop a secure and rapid communication system that had its full development during this period.

In the Middle Ages, coming to reduce the needs related to trade, the roads were used mainly for the PILGRIMAGE, a phenomenon that spread rapidly during this period. It is known for sure that the most frequented way since the time of pilgrimages is the Via Francigena, an obligatory itinerary of the Pilgrims who wanted to go to Rome. The location of the Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli is located on the Trajan's diverticulum that led from Aecae to the ancient Sipontum, a stretch of the Franciscan street that became known in the 12th century near the Candelaro as (Strata Preregrinorum), as a place of obligatory passage for pilgrims and penitents on their way to and from the Holy Land.storia_02

The period of construction of Vigna Nocelli would seem to refer to the XIII-XIV centuries, that is to say the moment in which the Gothic forms elaborated in the French region of Ile de France began to spread in Italy. The most important and innovative event for the affirmation of the new gothic tendencies in the south of Italy, was constituted by the great cultural artistic movement that grew up in the Swabian age and spread also in northern Italy, especially in Tuscany, where it was the Gothic subjected to a decisive re-elaboration.

Externally, the façade of the Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli is divided into three parts: the central one, whose vertical momentum vaguely resembles the tricuspid facade of the Cathedral of Orvieto (1310), and the side ones, including each between two pilasters crowned with spiers. The external wall is interrupted by five large portals, three places in the central area and two in the lateral ones, and by the string course that horizontally divides the building; the upper part of the facade has a circular pattern in the center. The decorative motifs of the building are given by the plant and floral ornaments of elaborate workmanship harmoniously inscribed within the pointed arches which, in addition to giving greater impetus to the architectural organism, refer to the pointed arches adorning the Italian 14th-century works.

Structurally the building is made of a solid load-bearing masonry, the thickness of the walls is 95 centimeters and does not seem to be of the dry type but rather made of bricks and stones, as it appears, following the deterioration of the plaster, both from outside that inside; while the times described are made of bricks.

The study conducted on Vigna Nocelli has led to some formulation of hypotheses, namely the construction that can not be considered neither a masseria nor a building of worship as the essential building blocks (division into aisles, apse, presbytery area). The historical-typological analysis of the masserie of Puglia, with the relative examples compared, have removed us from the idea that it may be a typical farm of the Tavoliere delle Puglie. It is unlikely that its construction could date back to the early 1900s as the materials and technology of the construction would have been different. Archival research has provided more than one item; in 1820 a certain D. Gaetano Nocelli, in the locality of Castiglione, bought the Salde lands of the Posta dei Porcili dividing 1/5. This post of pigs is documented since 1686 in the Castiglione-Palmori area to be used as a pasture.

Taking Account Che Vigna Nocelli is located on the Appia Traiana, the first major road connecting Rome to the south of the Italian peninsula (precisely on its direct variant, a Siponto), one could assume that the building was in the past:

• A building built for strategic purposes to control roads and valleys in the municipal age;
• A building built to house the pilgrims who in the Middle Ages went to the ports of Puglia to embark on the Holy Land or who still intended to reach the other minor destinations of the medieval pilgrimage such as the Sanctuary of San Michele on the Gargano and San Nicola in Bari;
• One of the many relief structures built along the road for the Crusaders heading for Puglia to be transported to the Levante ports;
• A receptive structure used in the second half of the 13th century by merchants who exported goods across Europe to the port cities of the East of Puglia;
• A building used as Customs since in the early years of the fourteenth century the first customs of sheep was established by the Angevins, then restored by Alfonso I of Aragon who in 1443 designates the Catalan Francesco Montember at the head of the customs office first in Lucera, then in Foggia;
• Or that has acquitted, in the course of time, all these functions, not excluding that of masseria, since it has often been identified as 'typical masseria of Tavoliere'.

Historical reconstruction by Angela Antonella Russo and Giuseppe Domenico Iannelli of the Archeoclub d'Italia, Section of Pietramontecorvino (Foggia)