by Teresa Maria Rauzino. Article published on June 6, 2003, on the "Culture" page of the "Corriere del Mezzogiorno," the Puglia edition of the "Corriere della Sera." Cover photo from the book "Il Gargano," written by Beltramelli in 1907.
Authoritative scholars such as Abbot Saint-Non, Gregorovius, Bertaux, Beltramelli, Douglas, Ungaretti, Miller, Green, and Brandi, with their fascinating "grand tour" impressions, have revealed to the intellectual world, but also to the general public who loved to learn about the world through travel accounts, the most intimate and unknown essence of the Gargano, a territory evocative for its splendid landscapes and its innate mysticism.
But how did people travel in the early 20th century on the gravel roads of the rugged Gargano Promontory, still untouched by mass tourism? Two famous journalists of the time, Francesco Dell'Erba (originally from Vieste, editor of the "Giornale d'Italia" and Naples correspondent for the "Corriere della Sera") and Antonio Beltramelli, tell us. Their reports have been republished by Mimmo Aliota of the Cimaglia Study Center in Vieste in the Early Twentieth Century, published by Litostampa, under the auspices of the Società di Storia Patria per la Puglia. These pages transport us to the period when the Vieste-Foggia stretch of road would be covered after a very uncomfortable sixteen-hour journey.
In particular, Dell'Erba, in his 1906 book Lo Sperone d'Italia, laments the condition of the provincial road to Apricena, "white and interminable, full of extremely difficult turns, tiring climbs, and precipitous descents." It was a truly unnerving journey, made in a stagecoach, "a large, rickety cage," creaking and screeching "like a tormented soul." The passenger, subjected to the rigors of winter cold or summer heat, compounded by the incessant and annoying buzzing of biting flies, was often thrown violently inside the carriage. He would end up "kissing the traveling companion sitting in front." When a lady was sitting opposite, the poor traveler, to avoid this "unpleasant" contact, felt forced to hug his knees to his chest, and to suffer—dell'Erba concludes—tortures worthy of the Holy Inquisition. Every so often, travelers were forced to disembark and walk long distances, "either because a hurricane had destroyed a bridge, or because the road had collapsed, or because the climb was too steep." Arrival in Vieste was always greeted as a major event, especially if the person disembarking from the stagecoach was a stranger. The wildest speculations swirled around him, as if he were a fantastic and fabulous being, mysteriously arrived from who knows what distant land.
Dell'Erba's testimony highlights a problem that is only partially resolved today: the area's underdevelopment, partly due to the prohibitive conditions of road access: "It is due to the almost total lack of roads that the Gargano has lagged behind the advances of civilization for several centuries. It is largely unknown to the inhabitants of the province itself, who are almost strangers to one another, poorly knowing each other, unaware of each other's needs, and never striving for common action or the achievement of a single goal."
even the Beltramelli, who dedicated a lively reportage to the promontory in 1907, expressed similar reflections: "The Gargano stagecoaches are everything that is most ancient, most uncomfortable, and most indecent imaginable. Shattered, creaking, unsafe vehicles that jolt almost in acute pain at the slightest pebble, that teeter on the edge of frequent precipices, delighting, in their ancient experience, in the fright of new travelers; that rock, sway, pitch in an unknown manner, causing some creature with a weak stomach perfect seasickness. These are the pleasures that must be experienced by anyone who intends to visit one of the most beautiful regions of Italy. For the Gargano is indeed a place of enchantment and wonder, one of the most beautiful regions of Italy, but it is also among the most forgotten regions of our beautiful Kingdom."
Yet someone native to the area already sensed at that time that even the most remote town on the Promontory (Viesti was known as "The Lost") could have a brighter economic future, if only the problem could be addressed. One mayor who believed in this and did everything he could to make this dream a reality was Domenicantonio Spina, a relative of the current mayor/member of parliament (Editor's note: Article from 2003). Roads were the strong point of his administration: he fought for a commercial port, the circumgargano railway, and the opening of the Viesti-Mattinata road, much easier than the one to Apricena. A truly extraordinary character, this upright and uncompromising administrator of public affairs, who unmasks even "in high places" those who row against measures he considers "meritorious," "mandatory" public works for the modernization of a town of 9.000 inhabitants like Vieste, still far from the activism of Giolitti's belle époque.
This mayor absolutely refuses to hear of personal interests. He does something exceptional, considering the many roles held by today's municipal administrators: to properly fulfill his public duties, he closes his pharmacy for a full ten and a half years, the entire term of his administration: from January 16, 1899, to July 31, 1910. He will finance the city's innovations with "courageous" taxes on property and luxury goods: he will tax saddle and draft horses, the employment of domestic servants, and superfluous goods. The mayor will truly shake up the apathy of previous administrations, repairing the main roads and providing Vieste with essential public buildings and services: the town hall, the school, the fish market, the slaughterhouse, the cemetery, the squares and avenues. And the mayors who come after him will be "forced" to adapt, against their will, going against the interests of the very social class to which they belong. Domenicantonio Spina deserves credit for helping Vieste take its first steps on the path of tourism.
He knew how to "fly high," looking to the future as well as the present. As early as 1899, he transformed a squalid shoreline, with a wall protecting the town, into a beautiful tree-lined avenue, which he later illuminated with electric streetlights. The Riviera Marina di Vieste would become the legendary promenade of the first elite vacationers, on the warm evenings of the "dolce vita" of the Northern Gargano. Today, romantic dreamers of a different Vieste still remember the beautiful ladies in long dresses who paraded along Corso Fazzini on summer evenings, as if it were a fashion runway. It was a time when tourism had not yet taken on the homogenized and chaotic aspect of today.
Sixties – Then Mattei discovered from above the wonder of Pugnochiuso
On a sunny morning in 1959, Enrico Mattei, the legendary president of ENI, was flying over the Vieste coast in his personal plane. He was so captivated by its beauty that he persuaded the pilot to fly over it more than once. When he reached Pugnochiuso, Mattei exclaimed, "This is paradise!" His tourist center was built right here in the early 1960s, ushering in tourism in the Gargano. And it was a revolutionary event.
