A trip to Puglia would not be complete without a visit, even a brief one, to Alberobello. This town, with over 1000 cones in its historic center, has been one of the 54 Italian sites listed by UNESCO on the World Heritage List since 1996. It represents a unique place in the world and it is impossible not to be fascinated and struck by its dramatic impact. Walking through the streets of Alberobello is like being immersed in a fairy tale, which is why it is a place loved by everyone, both adults and children. Alberobello is also recognized as one of the “Most Beautiful Villages in Italy.”
Recently, Walt Disney has also made an animated cartoon, Trulli Tales, about Alberobello, featuring characters called “trullalleri” who live in a place called “Trulli land.”
The trulli are dry-stone buildings, constructed directly on rock, without foundations, with roughly worked stone blocks stacked on each other, without mortar to bind them, and covered by a conical structure of small slabs of gray limestone.
The trulli were built because at the end of the 15th century Alberobello came under the County of Conversano, which demanded that the trulli be erected dry, using the interlocking stone technique. The count’s purpose was to be able to demolish them quickly in case of inspections by the emissaries of the Kingdom of Naples, to avoid paying taxes on the dwellings. Thus, Alberobello was an illicit village until 1797 when its 3,500 inhabitants rebelled against the feudal yoke.
The symbols on the cones of the Trulli have always aroused great curiosity. They are hand-drawn with lime and have origins and inspirations from various sources: Judaism, Christianity, paganism, zodiacal and astral elements.
