Barletta

Barletta is a port city on Puglia's Adriatic coast, built around a compact historic centre that mixes Roman, Byzantine, Norman, and Swabian layers. Its best-known landmark is the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue of a Roman emperor over five metres tall and the largest Roman or Byzantine bronze to survive intact — its date and the identity of the emperor it depicts are still debated, though most scholars place it in the 5th or early 6th century. Local legend holds it washed ashore after a shipwreck returning from the 1204 Sack of Constantinople, though the first solid historical record of it dates to 1309. Overlooking the old town is the Castello Svevo, a Norman castle later expanded by Emperor Frederick II in the 13th century and now home to the city's civic museum. The city's other defining episode is the Disfida di Barletta, a 1503 duel between thirteen French and thirteen Italian knights that gave rise to the town's nickname "the Challenge" and is re-enacted each September.