A bit of History
On the 7th October 1571, feast of the Madonna of the Rosario, in the river Lepanto the allied fleet of Christians resoundingly defeated the turkish army of the Sultan.
In the following years, thanks to all the victorious commanders, a herd of military and freelancers, most of them of Spanish origin, moved into our now safer lands,
and in 1590, Gianbattista Strada, known as “the notary”, arrived as well.
From notary to notary (remarkable is the lime made signature-seal of Felice Nicolò made in a 1709 act), when the community of Ginosa, like many others in Southern Italy, wanted to appoint the Madonna of Rosato as the patron, the choice was formalized with an act of the notary Felice Modesto Strada on the 6th of October 1765.
This is how the circle came to an end: from Lepanto to Spain, with the Madonna, Ginosa and the Strada family, the link could not be broken.
From Giuseppe Oronzo, surgeon, to Vincenzo, doctor in utroque jure, to Diego a prelate, to Felice, lieutenant colonel at the orders of cardinal Ruffo, to Ferdinando, Governor and Judge of the first criminal lawsuit for Prince Caracciolo for the land of Ginosa, to Dionigi, mayor, at the time of the brigand “Coppolone”: for better or for worse there’s always a Strada in the history of this town.
And here were are in the contrada Fiumicello, where the Masseria Strada stands: a magic place where you can breathe the Great History.
When in the eleventh century the Cavalieri Teutonici arrived in Ginosa, where they founded an hospital to welcome the pilgrim headed towards the Holy Land, they were charmed by this contrada and decided to include it in their possessions (the Castelluccio). Federico II of Svevia chose, together with other contrade, the valley of Fiumicello for the experimentation on the cultivation of cereals, breeding and hunting.
The Fiumicello is a crazy river where the streams from the mountains of Altamura and Santeramo flow, up until the Vallone of Silica, where it skirts the Sassi of Matera changing it’s name to “Gravina”, lapping the rocky settlements of Parco dei Monaci (Masseria Tortorelli) and the Pantone channel; once crossed Montescaglioso it comes back in Apulia, it takes back its name, it greatly expands, passing under “Castelluccio” and finally, when it reaches the Archita Tower, it flows in the Bradano.
From the surroundings of “Castelluccio”, Ferdinando Strada had his Masseria, that at his death was inherited by his four children. Right after that, one of the heirs, Rachele, when Vittorio Emanuele II King of Italy was reigning, donated her portion of the Masseria to his brother Giuseppe, who gave it to his son Giuglielmo.
The latter greatly augmented the extension of it, acquiring first the Masseria Andriulli, with the release of a mortgage, and in the end the Masseria Calace, then Surico, whose “kitchen of foresi” is now the “breakfast room” in the agritourism we are gladly inviting you to stay.
The Masseria nowadays
Nowadays the Masseria is inhabited and owned by Guglielmo Strada.
The agritouristic complex dominates, from the peak of the hill, the whole view of the secular olive trees and the young orange grove, inserted between wheat fields, fresh vegetables between woods and grazing lands for the livestock kept in the wild for the breeding.
The argitourism has a certified biologic production of olive oil, fresh vegetables, oranges, prickly pears and fresh fruit.
Click here to see the certification.
