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Manfredonia
It is a grand feast, on the quay of the port of Manfredonia when the
fishing trawlers return at sunset.
The port of Manfredonia at the beginning
of the 1900s
They
arrive all together as if by appointment, and while they moor on the
quayside it seems as if they are going to crash, provoking a chain
of ruinous collisions.
Fishing boats with sails, 1930
And
in the midst of shouts and curses everything goes well and the fishermen
jump on land to quickly unload the cases full of live, jumping fish.
The faces and the gestures are up to
this day, more or less, the same as ever.
The forest hills and the mountain range of the Gargano are only about
half an hour distance by car from the quayside of the port of Manfredonia.
On top of the bare highlands, clearly visible when you turn your back
to the sea, you 'll see the archaic and gothic presence of Mount Saint
Angelo. The town looks down, rather surlily, from the height of its
voluntary isolation.
The mediterranean solarity of voices, the scents and flavours of Manfredonia,
all evoke the sea, distant travels, open horizons.
Manfredonia was founded in 1256 by King Manfred after the terrible
earthquake of 1223 which destroyed old Sipuntum. In the Castle, planned
by Manfred but built by Charles of Anjou, you will find the National
Museum which houses an important collection of Daun stone slabs, sepelchral
monuments of the Dauns, richly sculpted with rather bizarre and at
times even upsetting images.
 The
stone slabs evoke life but even the afterlife, with hunting, fishing
and navigation scenes. At times they represent the dead person walking
towards the underworld, surrounded by real and imaginary beasts.
These stelae measure from 40 to 130 centimetres and are not more than
50 centimetres wide, mainly of limestone; a head is applied to the
column giving it the aspect of a human form. The heads are conical
in shape for the female figures and spherical for the males. They
were supposed to represent only the dead but the anonymous sculptors
of the VIIth-VIth centuries B.C. represented also the complex scenes
which are so fascinating and which are a testimony of this mysterious
civilization with their mythology, their ships and their tuna fishing.
Scholars believe that this artistic production of the Dauns is autonomous
and different compared to that of nearby ethnic groups. In the same
centuries in which these stone slabs were being sculpted the Greeks
were slowly occupying Puglia and founding their colonies in Southern
Italy.
However it's not easy to trace Greek influence in these works; archeologists
say that it is easier to link this production with that of the balcanic
regions, on the other side of the Adriatic. Proof of this is the mythological
repertory, possibly of balcanic origin, which has inspired most of
the motifs present in the Homeric poems.
A
very fascinating hypothesis is that these Daun stelae represent a
sculpted Iliad instead of a written Iliad, a popular Iliad instead
of a learned one.*
*”L’italia delle regioni:
La Puglia” by Sabatino Moscati, an article published in the review
Archeo n.2, February 1977.
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