Paul Wilstach, an American tourist in Taranto, Italy, was looking for a new place there to explore. An Italian naval officer suggested, "Have you seen the trulli?" (p. 229, "The Stone Beehive Homes of the Italian Heel: In Trulli-Land the Native Builds His Dwelling and Makes His Field Arable in the Same Operation", National Geographic Magazine, February, 1930). This tourist had never heard of trulli, houses shaped like inverted cones. These most unusual dwellings "dot the countryside between Martina Franca and Locorotondo" (p. 231).
Mr. Wilstach discovered that "The cones are built without mortar and without the use of grooved stones, yet they endure for centuries" (p. 232). Picture the map of Italy as boot-shaped. The area of tulli houses is found in the boot's heel.
On the train trip there, Mr. Wilstach remarked that one of the passengers was "a Fascist in his black shirt and gray uniform, his Robin Hood bonnet at a rakish angle. Over one shoulder and under the other arm swung an ammunition belt, and his holster was bulging and businesslike" (p. 233). I am sad to see this part of history, "Facism," already beginning in 1930.
It is amazing that the fields in this part of Italy are extremely rocky, even with the use of the flat rocks for building tall, thick fences and the stone tulli. However, this is very economical, the author notes. "The stones are used in the flat, irregular form in which they crop out of the soil, so there is no cost for working up the material" (p. 234).
The walls of the trulli are five to seven feet thick. This keeps the interior of the homes cool in this hot southern Italian climate. Each room in a house, in the case of homes with more than one room, has its own cone-shaped stone roof. The tulli are all one-story dwellings. There is never more than one door to a trullo; windows are few with the largest "rarely more than 15 inches square" (p. 249). Some were still being constructed in 1930. Sant' Antonio, the new church, in trullo style is beautiful. I particularly enjoyed the eight-page section of color photos showing the costumes the country folk wore on special occasions, and the unique tulli structures.
I agree with Mr. Wilstach that the trulli are fascinating, singular architecture. Seeing hundreds of them must have been quite a sight! "It suggested not only a world of queer prehistoric tombs, or giant beehives, or Titanic candle-snuffes, but a world of petrified haystacks, or a vast military camp of ancient Roman tents, abandoned and turned to stone" (p. 243).
Although most of the trulli are found in the countryside, there are a few in the town of Alberobello. "When at sight of this strangest of all European towns, I exclaimed, "Well, seeing this for the first time is an experience I can never have again." His companion retorted, "But the memory of it is something no one can ever take from you" (p. 259).
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