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Trani
The proximity of the sea in which it is reflected, its light, austere
quality and the luminous stone together make the Cathedral of Trani,
which is dedicated to San Nicola Pellegrino, one of the queens
among the churches of Italy. The history of the saint is unusual:
Nicola Pellegrino, a young man who came from Greece headed to Rome,
disembarked in 1094 on the docks of Otranto, the port of Salento,
which is famous for its trade with the East. Just two decades earlier,
in 1071, the Normans of Robert Guicard conquered Bari, capital of
the “catepanato”, bringing to an end a long period of Byzanine rule
in Italy. These were years of great transformation and ferment. However,
the exchange in goods, soldiers and pilgrims between Apulia and the
East continued unchanged, and the routes of the pilgrims were never
deserted. Nicola decided to go to Trani where he arrived in the month
of May. Perhaps this boy, filled with the love of Christ, was among
those who are simple and pure of heart.
Surrounded
by other young people, he went through the streets of Trani carrying
a cross, trying to arouse the consciences of the citizens and urging
them to repent. Many were annoyed by the obsessive cry kyrie eleison,
repeated by Nicola with a smile on his face. These were years when
the grandeur of the city and the community was valued as highly as
the grandeur and esteem of their cathedrals and by the importance
of the relics they contained. And so, when death overtook the young
man it was interpreted by some as a sign from God. Almost immediately,
he was honored with prayer, and to house his remains, the community
of Trani built one of the most beautiful and elegant churches in the
world.
The
Svevian Castle has recently been returned to its former splendor
after extensive restoration. The manor house was built in 1233 at
the behest of Frederick II, and still today is magnificent and original
because it faces onto the sea, which formerly filled its moat.
The
port, a magnificent natural enclosure, is the center of the social
and economic life of Trani at the time when commercial links with
northern Europe, the east, Venice and Ragusa flourished. Here in the
eastern zone of the city, only a few meters from the old mooring bollards,
rose the beautiful palaces of the city’s most important and noble
families.
The
Maritime Statutes, the “Ordinamenta Maris,” the first maritime legal
code of the Middle Ages, which established the rules of maritime law
and navigation, were promulgated in 1063 beneath the porticoes that
face the harbor.
The
Church of All Saints—le Chiesa di Ognissanti—dating from the
12th century, another gem of the romansque architeture of Apulia,
was built by the Knights Templar who decided to settle in Trani because
the city was also a resting place for pilgrims and crusaders on their
way to or returning from the Holy Land.
In
the Middle Ages, the presence of a long lasting, productive and cultivated
Jewish colony concentrated on the Jewish quarter in the heart
of the city favored the economic development of Trani. There were
no few than four synagogues, but history has preserved the
visible remains of only two. This quarter, still today easily recognizable
by the names of the streets, has remained the same through the ages:
it extends from Porta Antica as far as the churches of Scola Nova
and Saint Anne.
Memorial tablets, inscriptions, places, names: these are the faint
but important traces, dispersed throughout the beautiful historic
center of the city, that reveal, together with the magical spaces
of the little synagogues, the life of this little community that arrived
here, perhaps before the year 1000, with the Muslim invasions.
Emperor Frederick II, who during his reign favored peaceful coexistence
among the various groups that lived in Southern Italy, did not neglect
the Jews of Trani. He granted them a monopoly on the crafting and
sale of silk extending over the entire south. This rich and flourishing
community produced famous biblical and talmudic scholars such as Isiah
ben Mali` the Elder, born in 1180 in Trani and the founder of
a talmudic school, and his nephew, Isiah the Younger, famous
to historians of the Jews for his biblical commentaries.
With
the advent of the Angevins the situation changed; Fredrick’s dream
of rich and important cities like Trani and Lucera, where Jews, Mulims,
Latins, and Greeks lived together, and where churches, mosques and
synagogues stood side by side, went into decline. The Jews fell victim
to prosecution and relentless proselytism that within a short period
of time brought about the complete destruction of the community.
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