History

Castello Conti Filo, reopened to the public July 30, 2011, is one of the historical monuments of the High Salento that deserved to be reported in terms of usability after decades of total neglect.

Through the monumental entrance of the castle you can enter the wide paved courtyard overlooked by, among others, the entrance to the stables, where a small museum, to the pit of wheat, one tenth of the show, that the ancient church of Our Lady of La Salette (where there is one of the few wooden altars with a baroque style) and the main one leading to the upper floor. Here, a spacious lobby, you can enter the various antechambers, the sumptuous rooms, lounges furnished with style and elegance, the spacious roof terrace with jacuzzi pool and solarium, in short, a place where anyone can spend a pleasant residence of the banner 'elegance and hospitality.

Brief history of the Castle.

In 1588, the family bought the estate of mesagnese Dormio Torre Santa Susanna from Palagano. This event is definitely a pivotal moment for our country, because, with this family, Tower was passing under the influence of nearby Mesa, who at that time was subject to a very surprising development, and especially why, maybe because of the direct involvement of sleep, which proved to patrons, Torre Santa Susanna changed its appearance.

The family originated from Dormio mesagnese Senior Tiberius who had three children: Nicholas, Antonello and Francis. Of these, Nicholas was the one who was a notary and entered into on 1 May 1555 the act on the community of property between members of the clergy of Mesa. Nicholas was an enterprising business man, you gave the oil business and was able to make the most money earned through the exercise of the profession. He married the noble Lucretia mesagnese Corcioli, shortly after he became Lord of the sub-feud of St. Thomas in the territory of Mesa. Junior was born of that marriage Tiberius, who, to his father's death in 1586, he inherited and then sub-feud that became lord of the manor of Torre Santa Susanna PRESENTED to buy on his behalf by his mother Lucrezia, already a widow. Donna Lucrezia Corcioli bought from the estate of Torre Palagano Luzio, Godfrey's son and grandson of the feud that had Luzio by Charles V (September 28, 1588 act of the notary Caesar Mesagne Guarino - State Archives of Brindisi, notarial archive, Mesa , notary Guarino Caesar, vol. 8 1589, c. 66r-70v) and gave it to his son Tiberius. The fact that Don Tiberius wanted to honor this event, commissioned the renowned architect Gabriele Riccardi Lecce, a sculpture on the theme of the Nativity, to symbolize that he was indeed the revival, and was placed in the Parish Church Tower (now it can be seen in Church of Galaso).

But at this time other extraordinary works of art came together in our country. Certainly the end of the sixteenth century are the canvas of the Madonna of the Rosary, the sculpture of Christ with the Cross and the painting of the Baptism of Jesus in the church. Don Tiberius Dormio also judging the old house of ill-suited Guarini (located in the present area of Largo Moccia), the company wanted to address the construction of a new baronial palace, situated on the outskirts of the village, which was impressive and worthy of its name. The oldest part of the Baron's Palace, known incorrectly as "Castle", to be ascribed to the period of Tiberius sleep, and that corresponding to the ground. We do not know if the Dormio had already suggested a total elevation of the building with a floor elevation or thought to be limited to the corner towers, or if it had been initiated by Dormio or more likely by the Albricci or Lubrano. Ramps still exist in the body of the masonry of both towers, especially the south, attest to this possibility. More when you can not say the first floor of the north tower was completely rebuilt in the early nineteenth century and that of the south tower after 1950. The building at the time of sleep is presented with a main barrel-vaulted bays five, closed down the road and open to the courtyard, flanked by two towers at either end. Overall, the building had a conformation similar to those planimetric fortified sixteenth century. During the period in which Torre Santa Susanna belonged to the family slept in the village were built the Church of St. John and the Convent of St. Francis (now of the Carmelites), while the mother church was restored assuming its present appearance.

Tiberius were the sons of Don Francis and Lucretia, who became a nun of St. Clare in Lecce. Francis inherited, his father's death, the estate of Torre Santa Susanna and the sub-feud of St. Thomas. In 1596 he managed to buy to Crepacore, while those of St. James in 1607, and SURR Surboli. But it collapsed from too many debts, gave first rented the manor of Torre Santa Susanna in the Genoese nobleman Pier Francesco Marino and then sold everything (including the estate of San Biagio) Albricci Giovanni Antonio, Prince of Avetrana and Lord of Mesa, for fifty-five thousand ducats in 1614 and ended in the most absolute poverty, although he retained the title of Baron of Torre Santa Susanna. He died in 1626. From Eleanor Panareo had an only son, Tiberius, who became an excellent doctor and poet, who lived and died at Lecce and was a member of the Academy of Transformed. The family slept became extinct in 1883.

In possession of the manor of Torre Santa Susanna, then took over to the Dormio Albricci. These certainly were not up to their predecessors, at least as regards the works done in Torre Santa Susanna, although they quickly became one of the most powerful families of Apulia. That of Albricci, was a noble family that came from Como and do not know the reasons why, in the second half of the 500, the brothers Andrea and Giovanni Antonio if he were in the province of Otranto. The first lived in Ostuni and Lecce in the second. The latter, married to Mary Priziza, Ostuni lady, she had the beauty of ten children, of whom six were males and four females. Of the males, Pompey, Scipio and Gianmaria were valiant captains, who lost their lives in the service of Philip II, king of Spain, so that the sovereign honored their father Giovanni Antonio title of Marquis of Salice Salento. But he also managed to get hold of the feuds of Guagnano, Cellino, Erchie, shadow, and finally to Avetrana Mesa. The habitual residence of this gentleman became Willow and here he died in 1596. Heir of all the assets of securities and should have been the eldest son Charles, but as these died before his father, Giovanni Antonio named his heir his son, the young Giovanni Antonio Albricci II, since it was still a minor at the Guardian great-uncle Andrew. Giovanni Antonio Junior then married Giulia Farnese, belonging to one of the oldest and most noble Roman families who numbered among their ranks even popes and queens, and he was buying from Francis Dormio the lordship of Torre Santa Susanna, St. Blaise, Crepacore, Sorbolo and Galaso. He also lived in Salice.

In 1604, appointed by King Philip II, Prince of Avetrana, he traveled in his possession during which he was warmly welcomed by the crowd. In 1614, while he was viceroy in Naples, died, still young, suddenly, and was buried in the Church of San Domenico Maggiore. At his death, his widow Giulia Farnese, heir to the usufruct of all the feuds, succeeded him until the age of the child. Their marriage had three sons, John Anthony, Francesca and Mario. The latter, born in 1613, educated by Jesuits, he went to Rome where he studied the letters. He was well liked by the popes Alexander VII, Clement IX and Clement X, who sent him to the apostolic nuncio in Venice. Appointed Cardinal by Pope Clement X, was part of the conclave that elected Pope Innocent XI in 1676 and finally died in 1680. John Anthony III was born in 1607 instead. He was well liked by his subjects and he devoted much of Epifanio Ferdinando his works. The extravagance of this prince, however, reduced him in difficult circumstances, despite the fact that even in the early years he had increased the family fortune. In fact, he had also purchased San Vito of the Normans and the adjoining manor of St. James. After a few years, however, began to squander his fortune. Prince of Avetrana, Marquis of Willow, Lord of Mesa, San Vito, of Guagnano, Cellino, Uggiano, Erchie, Torre Santa Susanna, and many other less important fiefs, began to sink into debt too, as was Dormio happened to Francis. In 1629 he sold Uggiano, 1631 in San Vito, Torre Santa Susanna in 1632 with the feuds of San Biagio, Surbole, Crepacore Galesa and Domenico Lubrano, Duke of Ceglie, in 1638 and then Cellino Guagnano and Willow. Creditors put his hand to the rest of his lordship, and in 1646 was also sold at auction in Mesa Benedict De Angelis for 125,000 ducats. Lying on its economic plight, John Anthony III dragged the last years of his life in Rome, supported dall'obolo of his aunt and unmarried, died in that city, causing the extinction of his large family.

Dominic Lubrano, Duke of Ceglie, but an ancient noble family of Naples, lived in the castle of Ceglie, where he died in 1654 and was succeeded by his son Antonio, who appointed the Marquis of Torre Santa Susanna, however, sold his fief to Carmine De Angelis, Prince of Mesa, in 1660, perhaps because of the consequences of the last plague of 1656.
The period of the lordship of De Angelis is the second happy time, after that of sleep, for our country, at least from the artistic point of view. The head of this family was Benedict De Angelis, whose son Nicholas was lucky enough to marry Victoria Capano, a woman of extraordinary quality, and sensitive love of art patron. A must if the two of them and the same Mesa Torre Santa Susanna underwent a radical redefinition of its towns and saw the internal components relate to compete for new tastes and modern decorative syntax. The same phenomenon that almost simultaneously looming in the city of Lecce, where the impulse of the Bishop Pappacoda was taking place a new order, it was happening especially in Mesa, but also to the Tower. And as stated in Lecce in the seventeenth century the personality of Joseph Zimbalo in sculpture and architecture, said the figure is Mesagne Capodieci architect Francis, born in 1605 from such Zuccaro and Cecilia Verardi. Undertaken an ecclesiastical career, he became a priest, but fond of mathematics and geometry studied in Naples and Rome where he became an architect. Albricci close friend of Cardinal Mario Farnese, was once asked to design and plan the chapels, churches, palaces, fortresses, squares, etc.., Especially by the Prince De Angelis. For he rebuilt the castle in Mesa, which became the residence of the Princes, and was the creator of the splendid Piazza del Balzo Orsini, with the masterpiece that is the Baroque Church of St. Anne, built by the Princess as a vote for a disease his son, the prince Carmine. With him, especially in the Church of St. Anne, worked the sculptor Giuseppe Cino, a pupil of Zimbalo and a proponent of the revolution in Lecce Baroque.

Prince Nicholas De Angelis and Princess Victoria Capano, acting as patrons continue to obtain additional projects for architectural projects of large size. And so it was definitely Capodieci entrusted to the yard that had to finally complete the Baronial Palace of Torre Santa Susanna, started many years ago by Don Dormio Tiberius and never completed. This is demonstrated by the monumental portal with bosses of the building, since the Capodieci was very interested in this kind of style that he had obtained from the knowledge of the works of Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554), and the fact that art was the peculiarity of its simplicity and the purity of architectural forms, just as the prospect of the Baronial Palace of Torre. Such portals were built in the Castle of Mesa, in the Ducal Palace of venturi Minervino of Lecce, the Salento Libetta Carpignano, Filomarino of Jerseys, Casarano of Valens and Ferraro Parabita. Francis was an architect Capodieci lover of beautiful architectural forms, which plasticity was not to be confused with the ornaments. With him was the reason and calculation, not the fantasy of Lecce Baroque artists dominate the scene. It was rather an artist who was inspired by the art of the late sixteenth century, which in the seventeenth century.

In the Castle of Torre Santa Susanna were closed environments of deposition on the ground floor, was started from the south side elevation, creating a ramp in the courtyard outside the first floor and one internal distribution which is no longer visible, but whose traces of a large chimney on the roof and a hole was dug in the courtyard of wheat which was accessed by a staircase with a ramp located under the main access ramp, and another style adjacent to collect rainwater, equipped with a pit for collection. Nicola De Angelis wanted to erect monasteries and convents in his feuds and Capodieci was commissioned to design two monasteries in particular: one, that for Alcantarini for Torre Santa Susanna, and the other for Erchie, but were never built. De Angelis was perhaps the last to make a gift to the Mother Church of Torre Santa Susanna's painting of St. Charles Borromeo, believed until a few years ago of John Papagiorgio, an Athenian painter Manduria, but definitely attributed to Giampietro Zullo, painter mesagnese, son of Matthew and Rosa Zullo Profile, born in 1557 and died in 1617 do not exclude that in the urban fervor, all the churches of Torre Santa Susanna have been retouched, assuming its present appearance in many ways, in particular the Church of St. Stephen, but was not completed for the death of Capodieci to eighty-eight years, which occurred August 17, 1688. On the death of Prince Nicholas, Victoria Capano had wanted the architect Capodieci costruisse the imposing machine on which to lay the corpse.

Nicola De Angelis A Victory Capano and was succeeded by his son, Prince Carmine De Angelis, who continued his parents' wishes, completing many works already begun and starting new ones. It was perhaps for this large urban fervor, for this patronage, exasperated, that he contracted many debts so as to be forced to sell the estate of Torre Santa Susanna in 1722, before he was kidnapped from the same estate of Mesa in the Royal Council of Naples 1731. The Prince De Angelis died in Naples a few years later, now disgraced and unpopular with Mesagnesi jurisdictional grounds, but the Church of Sant'Anna in Mesa Capodieci designed by and worked in stone carving by master sculptor Giuseppe Cino and the same square Leap of Orsini remain witness to the greatness, the glory and decline of a powerful family of feudal lords who was one of De Angelis, Principles of Mesa and the Lords of Torre Santa Susanna and Erchie.

The manor of Torre Santa Susanna, in 1722, was sold by Prince Carmine De Angelis to Count Peter Aurelius wire Altamura, who had married his daughter, Eleanor De Angelis. Probably had to be a formal sale to save the estate from a possible seizure for debts by the Royal Council of Naples, in fact, a few years later seized the stronghold of the De Angelis Mesa. The family thread, or Philo, was of Greek origin and noble since 1200 and was in Altamura, was honored with the titles, privileges and orders of chivalry and invested more feuds. Among its members are known to remember Peter, Archbishop of Acerenza in 1279, Anthony, Mayor of the nobles of Altamura in 1441, his son John, following the transition from Altamura in October of 1466 the Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and the privileges granted to these noblemen of Altamura, and moved to Rhodes, with credentials of 18 November 1477, was appointed by Grand Master d'Aubusson, the ambassador with a mandate to conclude and sign peace with the King of Tunis and there be a consulate of Rhodes; Pasquale's brother John, who contributed much to the principality of Taranto conquistadel by Ferrante of Aragon and, as Mayor of the nobles, and made to submit the name of this Altamura took the oath of allegiance to the Aragonese, Robert, bishop and vicar apostolic notary Martorano of April 9, 1590, Nicholas Anthony, prelate and chamberlain of His Holiness Pope Clement X, and finally Byzantium wire, Vicar General of Altamura, Trani and Bitonto, was appointed Bishop of Oppido November 8, 1697 and Bishop of Ostuni on 11 April 1707. In 1554 the House of wire had diploma of nobility direct from Charles V.

With the Filo, the Castle of Torre Santa Susanna was first used as a noble residence, as previously no one had yet made settlement. For this reason, Peter Aurelius wire continued elevation of the building of two more bays to make the main floor living area and wider, but the financial commitment, however, did not have to be excessive. Moreover, even in 1753 with the Land Registry onciario of Torre Santa Susanna (Arch of the State of Brindisi, vol. 30) compared several properties of the feudal family is no mention of the building: Eleanor De Angelis, a widow of Count Wire, denounces as bodies burgensatici the underground cellar in front of the square, three mills and farm Cociolina with a church, houses, etc.., as well as numerous plots of land and houses for rent dates; children Filo Maxentius, Bishop of Castellaneta, and Charles Filo, the Pennant farm ..

Children of Peter and Eleanor Filo Aurelio De Angelis and Carlo were just Maxentius. The first began his ecclesiastical career, appointed Vicar General of Altamura, became Bishop of Castellaneta on 11 May 1733 and then Assistant Bishop as Pope, he founded a library and linked with its own hospital. Charles, the father's death in 1750, took the manor of Torre Santa Susanna and in turn was from Donna Giulia D'Aquino, two sons: Peter and Maxentius. The first, which was supposed to inherit the title of the County of Torre, but he died prematurely in 1764 and therefore the feud, the death of Charles, went to Maxentius Junior Filo, which can be considered the last feudal lord of Torre Santa Susanna, finding him when, in 1810, was proclaimed the end of feudalism. Maxentius then wire died in 1821. It was he who financed the construction of the chapel in the Convent of Mary Immaculate, where under the painting of St. Andrew Avellino, protector of sudden death, it said "MDCCLXXXII - Lequile". During the domination of Charles of Maxentius and the castle of Torre Santa Susanna was the most important interventions and significant. In fact at that time everything was completed on the main floor, unifying the hanging of the front frame complete with crowning cornice and string course, and was finally marked the cadence of the modular openings with relief by way 'of capital on the string-course on the ground floor was located adjacent to a storage environments entrance of the hall, which was isolated and transformed into a chapel with gabled pediment on the main road, secondary access dall'androne and access from a mezzanine floor of the masonry . This chapel is its raison d'etre in the fact that Maxentius Filo Sr., brother of Charles, had embraced the ecclesiastical career then to become Bishop of Castellaneta, while his grandson Junior Maxentius, son of Charles wire, as second son, had also He began his religious studies, before the death of his elder brother Peter to take him at once at the head of the family. Immediately after this innovation, the completion of the raising of the castle led to revise the system for access to the floor: he abandoned the mixed system (master and servant) of the external ramp, which still exists today, and more suited to a farm than a baronial building and replacing it with a new proposal tending to use the environment as an access located between the chapel and the new planting to the north tower, which was equipped with an access door with pilasters and decorative elements, but that was in a position very unfortunate not only for distributional problems that triggered the first floor, but also because the door was pretty overwhelmed by the size of the impending new volume used as stables built in those years and which provided the main floor a large terrace isolated, provided planters , which opened the vast walled garden surrounding the palace.

But the solution must have seemed ideal, since not only is the door is bricked and unusable within the environment and do not notice any monumental access to the system, but access was obtained, since the time of Byzantium Wire son and successor of Maxentius, and, anyway, before the unification of Italy, by reducing the length of the stables with the insertion force of a volume containing a staircase and, as a rational allocation of rooms on the main floor was obtained only opening on the north face of the north tower and the main front of the building at the intersection of the north tower, windows that were not foreseen in the legacy ... cut it that, with respect to the symmetry, it was also repeated on the main gable on the corner of the south tower.
Certainly the family wire, like a little 'all the aristocratic families who had enjoyed a privileged position under the Bourbons, he could not remain indifferent to the suggestion of a possible restoration of the status quo ante after the unification of Italy. However, it continued to remain locked in his castle, in a haughty and proud isolation, castle in the second half also had some major renovation. From Byzantium to build wire was touched to the first son Pasquale (III Count and Knight of the Order of Malta), until 1894, and then to his son, Edward, who was born in 1853 and had married, in 1878, Donna Giulia Granite Belmonte (1856-1920) and died in 1905. At first it was built on the south side of the courtyard, adjacent to the ramp outside the main floor, a vast room, placed symmetrically to the stables on the north by providing storage or work environment. Then, according to the proposals of a resurgent neo-medievalism, the palace was crowned with the addition of battlements which completed the picture. The futility of maintaining the ground floor a range of storage environments (no more motivated by the tenth feudal) lead to their isolation, the opening of a series of doors with transom on the main facade, the windows are closed and the inner courtyard their rent, one by one, as shops. The family ended up settling wire in Naples and in the Castle Tower was to spend only the summer period. The main branch of the wire will eventually become extinct in the early twentieth century. In Torre Santa Susanna, in the cemetery, there is still the family vault in which are buried wire Godfrey, son of Byzantium, who was born in Naples in 1865 and died at 39 years and Angelo, the son of Edward, born in Naples in 1894 and died just 16 years, the tomb of an unknown hand which still leaves some flowers, from time to time.

After the long term as mayor of the town of Vincent Cervellera, at a time when no longer aspired to the office of Mayor, as the dramatic moment of economic crisis, political and moral consequence of the end of the war, came to head of the Ignatius diversions (from November 1920 to March 1923), which won the contract to the tax collection latianese Angelo D'Ippolito, a man of his confidence. This assignment had to yield considerable benefits to the D'Ippolito, who then gave the management of the Tax, after a long time and in exchange for a considerable sum, the Cassa di Puglia. In 1947, D'Ippolito bought for about forty million pounds Castle of Torre Santa Susanna by the heirs of Accounts wire and in this circumstance the administrator of the assets of the wire, Rosina Rhodes, in exchange for his mediation, he had plenty of private garden Castle on the south side, then transferred in part to public land and partly kept for personal use. The Castle was sold in dense town administration in various circumstances: was used as a hospital during the outbreak of smallpox in the early twentieth century, as a primary school and as a venue for military units during World War II. Then passed to the heirs of D'Ippolito, suffered a serious decline, until in 2003 it was bought by the family Trinchera, who had initiated a restoration project for his recovery.
 

THE CASTLE'S CHURCH

In the mid-700, Charles Aurelio and Wire inherited from the parents of the feud Eleonora Torre Santa Susanna with its castle, while his brother Maxentius began his ecclesiastical career, and later became bishop of Castellaneta. It was precisely for this reason that one of the rooms on the ground floor of the castle, formerly used for storage, was found to be destined to Chapel manor. The chapel, with a gallery and a beautiful wooden Baroque altar (the only one in the province), and the facade is set the coat of arms of Msgr. Maxentius wire, then appeared to have been dedicated to the Madonna della Saletta, a cult that spread among the population of Torre Santa Susanna, especially in the early '900. A small statue of the Madonna della Saletta was venerated in the Chapel, every year on September 19th, a very strange ritual was to sprinkle the ground around the statue and the altar itself with roses during mass. The cult was so heard that many girls born in that period were baptized with the singular name of "Room", both in quantities to match those that were called by the name of the patron. Devotion to this Madonna began to wane when the D'Ippolito Latiano dismisero Chapel, using it for other purposes, while the statue was moved to the church of Santo Stefano, where more than sixty years lies almost forgotten in a small niche-mail beside the main altar.
In 2002 the Castle, after a long period of complete abandonment that threatened to turn it into a heap of ruins, was purchased by the family Trinchera now is working to complete restoration. The first determination was taken by the new owners to tear down an unseemly scale built by previous owners, which obliterated the old chapel, to return to the worship of the same Torresi (the castle church was blessed on December 8, 2006 by Don Julian Raphael). But many continue to question the origin of the name and the reason Madonna della Saletta, because that is one of the few churches throughout our region with such dedication.

The name of Madonna della Saletta is an alteration of the dialect which is more accurate name "Our Lady of La Salette", the Virgin appeared to two shepherd children in a village nestled in the Alps of southern France on September 19, 1846, twelve years before, so , the apparition of the Virgin to Bernadette at Lourdes. The place where the apparition took place is located near a small mountain village called Corps. To the east of this village, a valley that leads uphill to the town of La Salette-Fallavoux, composed of a dozen small villages, surrounded by mountains that rise up to 1800 meters. The shepherdess named Melanie Calvat 15 years and the young pastor of 11 years had the name of Maximin Giraud. Both belonged to poor families and could neither read nor write.

The morning of that Saturday, September 19, 1846, Maximin and Melanie set out together to lead to pasture four cows each, a goat and a dog. Around noon, the two shepherds did water the animals to a source and then ate their frugal meal of bread and cheese. Addormentatisi deeply, after a couple of hours and woke up, no longer seeing the animals, ran the little hill to look for them. Found them, calmed and began to descend the hill, but some small steps, Melanie was the first to notice a sudden a light globe in the place of the source, where they had left their knapsacks. Fear took hold of two boys. Melanie dropped his stick, while Maximin tried to catch him for his defense. But then they realized that the boys inside the globe of light was the figure of a woman, they always called the "beautiful lady" sitting on a rock, resting his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in hands and heard sobbing. She got up slowly and said to them: "Come, my children, do not worry, I'm here to announce a great message." The Lady was dressed like the women of the village: a dress that came down to the foot, a shawl, a cap on the head, an apron tied around his waist. The cap, the edge of the shawl and feet were decorated with garlands of roses. In addition to roses of her shawl a heavy chain was visible, while in the breast he wore a crucifix flanked by a pair of pliers and a hammer.
The beautiful lady with two children communicated some "secrets" and some premonitions about the fate of men and then began to move, crossed the stream and repeated, without turning round: "Come, my children, do know all my people." Head up the winding path leading up the hill and was elevated from the ground, the two reached the shepherds and they knew that you first looked at the sky and the earth. Then the beautiful lady began to merge into the light and the latter, in turn, disappeared.

Witnesses of an event so extraordinary, Maximin and Melanie returned to the valley, and was the same Maximin is to give notice to his master than to that of Melanie, who immediately reported to the parish priest, who spoke in his sermon on Sunday and informed the 'Dean of Corps. Maximin Giraud was questioned by the mayor of the country after just two days after the event. The Dean of Corps, October 4, informed of what the Bishop of Grenoble. The news of the apparition spread rapidly. The father of Maximin, who was not a believer, he converted on 8 November. The first pilgrimage took place on November 24, two children led by visionaries. On 31 May 1847 to pilgrimage in which the cross was planted on the mountain 5,000 faithful participated. In October of 1846 and in February of 1847, the two visionaries were questioned by two diocesan priests. On April 16, 1847 were even questioned by a magistrate of Grenoble. On that date they first recorded the miraculous healing of Sister Peirron Clair, at Avignon. The two children were interviewed again by another priest on 29 May of that year and July 22 the bishop of La Rochelle made a personal pilgrimage to La Salette Maximin and Melanie, and interviewed. On August 15, another recovery was declared on Melanie Gamon, in Corps. On 19 September, the first anniversary of the apparition took place on a pilgrimage of 50,000 faithful.

In July of that year the Bishop of Grenoble asked two eminent professors of the seminary of Grenoble and the appearance of conducting a detailed survey and prepare a comprehensive report, which was completed on October 15, 1847. The report was then submitted to a committee of investigation of sixteen experts who held eight sessions, two of which were also the two shepherds who were interrogated at length. When the commission finished its work, approved the report which was published June 26, 1848 and sent to Pope Pius IX for the final approval of the Holy See. On 19 July 1851 the apparition was officially consecrated with the title "Our Lady of La Salette."
Of the two shepherds, seers, Maximin Giraud had a very restless life. After the apparition of La Salette attended school with little results. He entered the seminary to get out soon after and led a wandering life in search of himself and of his identity. It was used in a home, then tried to study medicine, was employed in a pharmacy, he enlisted in Rome in the body of papal Zouaves, and returned to France in debt and seriously ill, just forty years in Corps died on 1 March 1875 and was buried in the small cemetery in the country, but his heart lies in the great basilica in the meantime was built on the site of the apparition, in the mountains.

na to take over his institution, the "Daughters of Divine Zeal of the Heart of Jesus." Returning again to France, after a few months spent in Moncalieri in Piedmont, he settled with Don Combe, pastor of Diou. When in meetings and functions was requested to mention the fact of September 19, 1846, found the simplicity and clarity of his first novel, consistently conforms to that of Maximin, when he returned as the last time the pilgrimage to La Salette 18 and September 19, 1902.

Hearing approaching the end of that long and troubled life, Melanie wrote to her former confessor, Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, the future, to find her a place in which it was not known to live in hiding in his last days. Father Fusco spoke to the Rector of the Shrine of Pompeii, the Dominican Father Charles Cecchini who offered her hospitality, but as the famous Shrine of Pompeii pilgrimage, Melanie refused, but at this time when the Rector was appointed Bishop of Altamura (Ba ), and then invited her in this city in Puglia, she accepted, arriving from France on June 16, 1904, unknown to anyone. Stayed in different houses, even in the palace of the young ladies who perhaps knew something Giannuzzi, leaving little but going every morning in the Cathedral to attend the celebration of Mass and receive the Eucharist, then pausing for a long time to pray in the Chapel of Our. Hit by a severe fever, he died alone in the night between 14 and 15 December 1904. They found the next day, at approximately 10.00 still kneeling in prayer. His funeral was held at the Cathedral of Altamura, present throughout the Chapter, and on that occasion the Bishop. Cecchini revealed the true identity of the "French Lady", as it was called in the country. And Altamura is still buried in the church of the Immaculate Conception of the Daughters of Divine Zeal, where the tombstone is carved the image of Our Lady of La Salette that embraces the visionary to bring it into heaven.
It was this circumstance which threw the wire originating in Altamura, to make their name the Church of Santa Susanna Castle Tower to "Our Lady of La Salette." Veneration so strong as to be fully accepted in the inhabitants of the country! Unfortunately, some events related to a misuse of the Church by the family that replaced the wire in the possession of the castle, and the passage of time of nearly three generations have made this story so that our country was almost entirely forgotten.
It would be desirable, now that the castle and its church were restored and the veneration of the Madonna della Saletta against return to old glories, and that the administration of Torre Santa Susanna utilize to ask a twinning with the French town of La Salette Fallavoux-organizing maybe through some voluntary association, a pilgrimage to the beautiful Shrine of "Our Lady of La Salette."

Dott. Antonio Trinchera

(National History Society for Puglia)