With their unique shape – a central white base and a grey cone-shaped roof – the Trulli have a strong cultural value and are unique in Europe: thanks to the Trulli, a testimony of a prehistoric architectural typology that survives and continues to be functional has reached us.
[expand title=”A treasure of tradition from the Itria Valley”]
The place today known as Alberobello took its toponym in the Middle Ages from the Latin sylva arboris belli, a name related to a battle or an ambush occurred in the area. The trullo architecture has developed over the centuries starting from an original and little known proto-historic settlement, to which it is possible to relate the first examples of buildings based on the model of tholos (little circular covered tomb). The inhabited areas of Aja Piccola and Monti developed around the beginning of the 11th century AD and later became parts of the larger built-up area of Alberobello. Alberobello was a feudal possession of the Acquaviva family until 1797, when this small built-up area, according to the will of a community of already 3,500 inhabitants, obtained the title of town from King Ferdinand IV of Naples. In this town, Trulli were built at a large scale. Therefore, Alberobello is rightly called “the town of Trulli”: there are more than 1,600 trulli, of which approximately 1,030 at Aja Piccola and 590 at Monti.[/expand]
[expand title=”The Trullo: a link between architecture and the environment”]
Like in a large living picture, the Trulli are located in the natural context and create a wonderful landscape that today serves as an example of echo-sustainability. In general, the building technique is based on rubble walls, i.e. built without cement. In particular, the Trulli were built directly on the natural bare rock beneath, using rocks of calcareous stone collected in the fields nearby and the water basins of the area. The charm of these square shaped buildings with a conical top – still used in daily life – is given by both their external appearance and the organization of the internal space. They have double walls and rectangular rooms with small windows. Fireplaces, ovens, niches and alcoves are built in the wall thickness and, on the top of the roof, made of grey stone slabs called chianche or chiancarelle, there is often a decorative pinnacle, with an apotropaic and well-wishing function (for example, for a rich harvest), a testimony of a time when a symbolic connection existed between man and the environment, a non-verbal communication made of gestures and rituals. The way the stone grey stands out against the typical blue sky of this area of Apulia catches the eye, a contrast enriched also by the chromatism of the Murgia red soil: it is impossible not to catch the exceptional character of these buildings and resist the curiosity to peep in one of them. Curiosity urges to discover the sensations one can have inside that cupola that, on the one hand, seems to reproduce the symbolic roundness of the sky and, on the other hand, immediately gives the idea of a fireplace in that intimate place that man has been calling home for centuries.[/expand]
