Surrounded by the suggestive “murgico” landscape, on the border between apulia and Basilicata region, there’s Torre Spagnola, one of the most representative farms of the same territory. It owes his denomination to the mighty tower, built in the period when the territory was controlled by the Crown of Spain, in the person of the viceroy Gusman.
Torre Spagnola had a strategic value for the control of the roads of Matera with the Apulian territory and all the south of Italy. The tower was built between 1560 and 1600 by the will of Captain Giuseppe Trullos, nephew of the bishop of Castellammare Giovanni Trullos, who had moved in 1560 to Matera.
Giuseppe in 1603 bought the right to collect gabelle (taxes) by making the tower a place of tax office.
The Trullos married into the Ulmo family of Matera whose last descendant lost all the family fortune. Deathbed, considering paying for this dissolute and reckless life, to win Heaven he donated this property to Dominicans monks.Torre Spagnola with the Dominicans, that they kept until the end of 1700, turned into an agricultural farm with the construction of new structures appropriate to the new zootechnical address.
The Dominicans were expropriated by the Napoleonic laws of 1806. To them, in the first decade of 1800, succeded the Marquis of Ferrante Ruffano. In 1840 the farm was bought by the Duke Malvezzi. Family malvezzi creates the real farm service, converted to agriculture and training of horses, that were sold to the Bourbon army. Raids by bandits forced the owners to fortify the farm, which will continue to play until the early 1900s, a role of defense in the countryside and agricultural production.
In 1938 Torre Spagnola was sold to Michele Paradiso of matera and then in 1968 to the Dimauro family of santeramo in colle (Apulia) who in 2001 after a careful restoration, turned it into a wonderful agritourism(farmhouse), perfect place for a relaxing holiday.
The building, with an inner courtyard, has a rectangular plan whose right corner is hinged on the tower. As a service masseria (farmhouse), it was a residential structure for the exclusive benefit of the massaro and the employees. A large and refined portal, dominated by an old wayside shrine, in which was originally located the statue of saint Dominick de Guzman gave access to the main courtyard.
Tower is the original element of the rural structure.