3. The region of Apulia (official Italian name: Puglia) is considered the heel of the
Italian "boot” and is located in the southeast of Italy. It borders the Adriatic and
the Ionian Sea and is mostly a plain; the Tavoliere plain and the Salento
plateau cover in fact a huge part of its territory; its low areas are however
broken by the mountainous Gargano Peninsula in the north, and by the
Murgia hills which stretch from the centre to the south-west area of the region.
Bari’s Basilica, dedicated to St. Nicholas
Bari is the capital of
the region, which is
divided into 6
provinces: Bari,
Brindisi, Foggia
Lecce, Taranto and
Barletta-Andria-Trani.

4. Apulia's main areas of natural beauty and tourist
attractions are:
the Gargano, a beautiful promontory with its high coasts
and rugged cliffs, its mountains of grey outcrops and salty
lakes. In this promontory one can not only see one of Italy’s
most beautiful National Parks but also some important holy
places such as the oldest shrine in Europe, Monte
Sant’Angelo, which in the Middle Ages was an obligatory
destination for the pilgrims going to the Holy Land, and San
Giovanni Rotondo, where Renzo Piano has recently
dedicated a church to the most famous modern saint who
lived in a monastery in this town, San Pio di Pietralcina

5. the Baroque-style façades of Lecce’s churches
Lecce- Basilica of the Holy Cross
the Grottos of Castellana, one of
the biggest cave systems in
Europe where one can admire the
natural beauty of the stalactites
and stalagmites

6. Castel del Monte, a unique Swabian castle which is only half an
hour’s drive from Molfetta (this castle has been included among the
World’s Cultural Heritage of UNESCO)
A late afternoon view of Castel del Monte
the cone-shaped picturesque
houses of Alberobello, better
known as Trulli which are also
part of Unesco’s world Cultural
Heritage.

7. There are also countless charming historical centres such as
Conversano, Barletta, Canosa di Puglia, Manfredonia, Martina
Franca, Mesagne, Molfetta, Ostuni (the white town), Otranto, Santa
Maria di Leuca, Trani, with its world famous cathedral, San Vito dei
Normanni, Gioia del Colle, Andria, Ruvo di Puglia, Bitonto and many
more.
Away from the coast Apulia rises gradually towards a plateau, the
Murge, which has been set aside as the first Italian rural park.
Towards the Ionian area in the south we can find the gravine,
rugged and deep ravines. This area is in fact famous not only for its
natural and artificial cave settlements but also for the rock-churches
which were carved in the Middle Ages by Greek monks who had
settled here.

9. Molfetta is a trading and maritime town situated in Apulia, a region which is
in the south-east of Italy. It boasts both one of the most important fishing
port in the lower half of the Adriatic sea and one of the most important fish
markets in Italy. It is composed of a characteristic medieval fishbone central
nucleus and of an increasingly developing modern area.
Molfetta is 25 kilometres far from
Bari, the second most important city
in the southern mainland. The
province of Bari stretches on a long
strip of plain on the Adriatic coastline
that gradually rises towards an
internal plateau, the Murge, which
has been marked off as the first
Italian rural park. Near Molfetta there
are attractive middle-size towns
which run parallel to the coastline
(Bisceglie, Trani, Barletta,
Giovinazzo) or which are in the
interior of the Province (Andria, Ruvo
di Puglia, etc.).

10. Molfetta’s origins are to be found in a the
grottoes of a Karst depression, the Pulo,
where there are traces of a Neolithic
civilization. Molfetta was a royal town
which enjoyed a number of privileges
under the Swebian and the Angevin rule
and was a thriving commercial centre
under the Aragonese. After a period of
wars it was annexed to the Naples
kingdom until the unification of Italy.
On the edge of the old town, which has a
particular fish-bone pattern, there is the
Duomo Vecchio, a charming Romanesque
Cathedral ( the old Cathedral) which is
considered as one of the finest examples of
Romanesque Apulian architecture and is
currently a national monument. It was built
between 1150 and the end of the 13th
century.

11. Another important church is the Madonna
dei Martiri, a basilica whose original
church was built, thanks to the will of
William II the Norman, in 1162 on the ruins
of the burial place of the Hospice of the
Crusaders, where the pilgrims who made
for the Holy Land stopped. . The whole
front side of this church has been rebuilt in
neoclassical style in the 19th century. In
1951 the Madonna of the Martyrs, thanks
to the special worship seamen and people
from Molfetta show towards her, has been
declared Co-Patroness of Molfetta and in
1985 the church was raised to the rank of
Minor Pontifical Basilica.
This church has an adjoining building, the
Hospice of the Crusaders, was built in
1095 by Robert Guiscard’s son, Roger
D’Altavilla. It was made up of two buildings
which were built not only to put up pilgrims
who, in order to receive indulgences, visited
Apulian sanctuaries (St. Michel Archangel,
St. Nicholas of Bari), but also to give help to
the pilgrims and crusaders who made for the
Holy Land. The building is nowadays one of
the most elegant facilities used for local art
exhibitions.

12. Its present Cathedral has an imposing baroque façade, made of
dressed and squared ashlars in local stone. Its building was
started on behalf of the Jesuits’ Order after 1610 and was ended
at the end of the 17th century

13. Other old churches of the town are:
The Church of the Purgatory: this church is
also called St. Mary of the Afflicted and was built
in 1643. Its façade, in late Renaissance style.
This church houses seven papier-mâché statues
representing the Saints who witnessed Jesus
Christ’s passion. These statues were carved by
Giulio Cozzoli, a famous native sculptor, and are
displayed during the procession superintended by
the confraternity of the Death on Holy Saturday.
St. Stephen’s Church, which was built in 1286 outside the walls of
the town as a shelter for people affected by infectious diseases.
During Molfetta’s Pillage the church was seriously damaged and
consequently reconstructed from 1540. Its main façade was built
again in Renaissance style in 1586 and is divided into three orders
and nowadays has only one nave and an aisle as one of the two
original aisles was sold in the past. Its decoration is an eclectic
combination of late-Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical and also
Romanesque features.
Among other works, five wooden statues representing Christ’s
Passion, which are exhibited during the procession of Good Friday,
are kept in this church.

14. St. Dominic’s Church, which was started in 1636 and was consecrated in
1699. On its façade there is a colonnade which is flanked by niches where the
statues of St. Catherine of Alessandria and of St. Mary Madelaine are set. On the
entrance portal there is a stone effigy of the Saint, holding in his hands the town.
The present bronze doors have been made by Vito Zaza, a sculptor form Molfetta.
Inside the church a painting by T. Giaquinto, “the Madonna of the Rosary”, is
displayed in the second left chapel; two other precious paintings, “The fall of the
manna in the wilderness” and “The bronze snake” by Nicola Porta are placed on
the sides of the main altar. A choir and a pulpit of the 17th century are also
particularly worthy of admiration.

15. La Fabbrica di San
Domenico, an adjoining building
which is a former convent of the
Domican Friars, is nowadays a
multipurpose complex which is
made of the Record Office, the
Town Library, an Art and Cultural
Centre, a Neviera (an
underground storage room where
food was preserved in snow)
where exhibitions are mounted,
a conference hall and an atrium
where cultural events and also
concerts are held. A wonderful
bronze sculpture of the Deposition
conceived by G. Cozzoli is
permanently exhibited in these
premises.

16. St. Bernardine’s Church: this
church, which was formerly a convent
of the Observant Minor Friars, was
built in 1451 and rebuilt in 1585, as a
consequence of the damages brought
about by the French and the Venetian
army during Molfetta’s Pillage. Behind
the main altar, you can admire a 16th
century walnut choir having 18 stalls
and the baroque statue of the
Immaculate Conception, by the
sculptor Brodaglia. A 15th century
polyptych by an unknown author is
nowadays displayed in the Passaris’
Chapel.
A 20 meter votive monument, built in
1856, adjoins this church. It is called
the Calvary and is a three-tiered
gothic spire built on an octagonal
plan. Each level is decorated with
cusps and cruciform pinnacles and
the last tier is surmounted by a stone
cross.

17. The exterior of the school

18. The ITCGT G. Salvemini is a
technical and technological upper
secondary school for accountants,
surveyors and tourism operators. It is
dedicated to Gaetano Salvemini an
important historian, politician and
journalist from Molfetta (1873-1957).
You who get in, leave out any hope
(From Dante’s Hell)
A graffiti on the entrance door of the school
if you want to see
more you can click on

19. The ITCGT G. Salvemini has carried out an
important function in the making of the economic and
commercial actors not only of the town but also of
the surroundings, adapting its courses to the specific
needs of the town and of the territory, in a country
which has specialised rather than comprehensive
secondary schools.
The school is attended by about 1000
students who come from Molfetta and from
its surrounding towns. It has evening
courses for adults and, from many years, we
have been offering various extracurricular
activities both to our students and to the
public.
The Language laboratory

20. Our courses are then closely interwoven not only
with the town economy but also with the
surrounding towns' systems as trade, the building
sector and tourism are playing a major role in this
area. In fact when Molfetta had a strong need of
accountants for its strongly developed trade and
commerce network, our school, which was set up in
1949, had just one qualified course for this specific
job. As the building sector became more and more
important for the town, which a few decades ago
went through a considerable growth, a course for
surveyors was introduced in the 1987-88 school-
year. Over the years this highly specialized course
has turned out to be an important qualification also
for the surrounding towns. In 2001 two new courses
were introduced: the first one, called Mercurio,
aimed at complementing business administration
skills with computer programming, while the second
one, called Iter, had the objective of training tourist
operators and to meet the strong tourist potentials of
our area.

21. With the new school reform, which is being
implemented during the current school year,
the Mercurio course has been turned into
Business Information Technological
Systems, the other administrative course,
whose old name was Igea, has been called
Administration, Finance and Marketing, and
the Iter course which also belonged to the
economic field, has been renamed Tourism.
As regards the surveyors course, which
belonged to the technological area, it has
been named Building Craft, Environment and
Territory. There has been an overall
reduction of teaching hours (generally from
35/36 to 32) and schools have been urged to
establish stronger links with the working
world representatives and with the school
territory. For this reason training periods are
not only highly recommended but they are
part of the curricula in their own right and our
school in the last few three year has been
organizing several training periods in
cooperation with public bodies or with private
firms.
Our didactic plan aims at
matching the need of giving
technical and technological skills
with the need of helping students
to become good citizens, in other
words to help students to become
not only good technicians but
also good (wo)men, who are
aware of social problems and
who have a proper civic
consciousness.

22. For reaching this objective our extracurricular activities are strongly integrated
in the school didactic plan and make up the test-bench to experiment
innovative and methods to deal with updated contents, which take into
account the difficulty of new generations to spend long hours on books, the
need to look for laboratorial methods which allow students to put into practice
theoretical teaching and also to sensitize students of social issues, which is
also a way to make them feel part of a caring community and to reduce school
dropouts.

23. During these school years our curricula have been complemented with
projects financed through the school funds and with projects included in the
so-called Integrated Plan which comprises the projects financed by the
European Social Fund and by the Regional Development Social Fund. Other
ESF projects are instead reserved to the school staff or to adults and to
former school students.
Apart from the Cambridge ESOL, the Trinity, the DELF, the FT2 and the
ECDL projects, which aim at achieving a certificate in the English, French
and German language or in the computer use, some projects are meant to
give professional skills in the field of surveying, trade and commerce and
tourism. The teachers of the surveying course organize projects for
building with eco-materials, to respect safety laws in the building site, to
teach art history or teach restoration and renovation techniques, to draw
with Auto CAD.
if you want to
see more you
can click on

24. Archaeological excavation campaigns have been organized in
cooperation with the University of Bari in the last five years and
represent by now one of the most significant projects of our school.
if you want to
see more you
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25. Students of the IV B Mercurio took part in the project Firms in Action promoted
by Junior Achievement Italia during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. The
2008-09 IV B Mercurio class set up a no-profit firm called ElioSynergy. The
students, set up a firm named Sun Sun and, supported by a local firm the
Emitech Ltd, devised a mobile solar charger and gave the profits obtained from
the sales of this innovative product for charitable purposes.
The 2009-10 IV B students instead
set up a firm called EcoFloyed and
invented a space-saving shopping
kit, ranking fifth in the related
national competition.
if you want to see
more you can click
on

26. Students from the Iter course have been taking part in projects for
tour escorts or for tourist guides but, as regards tourism
specialisation, the training periods organized at the Airport of Pisa are
undoubtedly the most meaningful projects as they have taught
students how to deal with the main tasks of airport staff.
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27. Other professional projects enrich our didactic plan school but the formative
projects are also varied, as they range fromvolunteering on a European scale
to the use of alternative energies, from waste recycling to journalism, from
sailing and scuba-diving to theatre, popular dances, creative music, home
design and clothes creative graphics: in the 2009-2010 school-year the
School Council of Teachers approved some 40 projects, which shows a great
effort of creativity and dedication on behalf of the school teachers and of
interest and involvement into school life on behalf of our students.
if you want to see
more you can click
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