Barletta - Colosso di Barletta

The Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans have been here. In 216 BC, during the second Punic war, the Battle of Canne was fought nearby which led to the heavy defeat of the Romans by Hannibal's army. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the area was taken over by the Normans, who built a fortress here. During the time of the Crusades, Barletta became an important gathering point for the armies of knights. The city had its heyday under Frederick II, who in 1228 announced the sixth crusade during the Diet held here. Following the Muslim conquest in the Holy Land, the Archbishops of Nazareth took permanent refuge in Barletta in 1327.

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The Colossus of Barletta, today placed next to the Basilica del Santo Sepolcro, reportedly washed up on a shore, after a Venetian ship sank returning from the Sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade in 1204, but it may be that the statue was sent to the West much earlier. According to tradition, it depicts Heraclius (reign 610–641 AD), but most scholars doubt that.

It is known that a colossal statue was discovered in 1231–1232 during excavations commissioned by Emperor Frederick II in Ravenna and is not improbable that he had it transported to Barletta. The first certain news about it dates from 1309 when parts of the legs and arms were used by local Dominicans to cast bells. The missing parts were remade in the 15th century.