Bari

Description

In verse Paradiso VIII, 62 the city of Bari is mentioned together with Gaeta and Catona, castles which, according to the notes on canto VIII, characterize and adorn the horn of Ausonia. This horn is described in the notes as the southern part of Italy, corresponding to the territory of the Kingdom of Naples, which in ancient maps took the shape of a sickle or a horn, with the peninsulas of Puglia and Calabria curving on either side of what is now the Gulf of Taranto. The note specifies that the verb coined by Dante, «s'imborga», precisely means to fortify itself with castles, adorning itself with the castles of Bari, Gaeta and Catona, thus designating the three kingdoms that fell to Charles Martel by paternal and maternal inheritance.