Alberobello

The first occupation of the area started only in the early sixteenth century on the impulse of the Count of Conversano Andrea Matteo III Acquaviva d'Aragona. He allowed about forty peasant families from Noci to settle here and cultivate the land, with an obligation to give him a tenth of their crops. In 1635 his successor, Count Giangirolamo II (1600–1665) erected an inn with a tavern and an oratory and started the urbanization of the forest with the construction of few small houses. The expansion of the urban area was helped, firstly by the abundance of calcareous sedimentary limestone from the surrounding karst landscape, and secondly, by the requirement of the Count to build houses only with dry stone walls without the use of mortar, which would become the peculiar trulli. …