Every design for Modugno

Modugno once bought its own freedom: in the late sixteenth century the town paid a fee to release itself from feudal rule, and it held on to that independence until the municipality went bankrupt in the century that followed. That streak of pride runs through a history that includes Byzantine beginnings, the archbishops of Bari, and a prosperous spell as a Sforza duchy under Isabella of Aragon and Bona Sforza.

The town sits a few kilometres southwest of Bari, in the low basin behind the city and about five kilometres from the shore. The land is flat limestone, rising gently towards the Murgia, and the water runs underground through caves and the dry ravines known as lame. Before the industrial zone arrived, Modugno lived from farming; now it is one of the region's important factory towns, and it grew quickly after the war.

The old centre keeps its noble houses — Palazzo Angarano-Maranta, Palazzo Stella, Palazzo Piepoli — and out towards Bitritto, near Lama Lamasinata, stand the ruins of the Castello di Balsignano, close to the hill where a Neolithic village once stood.