Without doubt Ostuni land is from the Neolithic age in continuous colonizations by a lot of peoples came from Anatolia and the Mediterranean coasts.
At the beginning thise population took care of lodging in rocky settlements and caves living traces and proof, typical are the caves of ( "Sant'Angelo), ("Magda"), ("Santimagno") and ("Santa Maria d'Agnano").
Afterwards they let born villages with huts, leaving nomadism and giving up to some activities like agriculture and breeding.
Really important artistic and historical monuments are ( "le Specchie e i Dolmen") leaved by this people and still untouched. The land between "Savelletri and Petrolla" today is "Villanova" the port of shipment in Ostuni.
Towards year on thousand b.c. new civilization ("Messapi") and ("Japigi") came to Ostuni establishing customs, traditions and habits.
This union has lost because of Annibale's destruction of the old city and had his long dominion for 17 years untill 488 d.c. .
Later on, Ostuni was taken by Ostrogothic led by Theodoric who took away to Ravenna (North Italy) some Ostuni's monuments after that the ostroghotic rule came the norman one as from the XI sec. we could remember the Altavilla family who built a castle on the top of the city, then destroied. In this period the economy and the art became so important for Ostuni a sure rule into the financial/system has been played by Villanova.
The best period is riched in the 500' with the Aragonese Dominion. In any case it is important remind that in the feudal time, Ostuni had try to/not be submitted to the ruler families and being into the economic favourable condition, like city of the stateproperty.
The situation changed when in the 1639' the Zevallos family came to Ostuni and caused a moral and economic decline from wich a lot of rich familles gone away.
In the 1804' at the Zevallos family has took away his title rank because of exaggerated debits and beehaved badly.
After that, Ostuni knew a short period of peace but the Bourbons came and population opposed a valiant resistance to the enemy.
Ostuni became the place of patriotic unrest the Boubons city coat of arms feel down and in the 1860' the italian flag finally waving in Ostuni'sky.
Into the first war the patriotic vallie has been confermed by the 300 people of Ostuni that died to give freedom in the north of Italy:
their groufathers will be carved on the monument's stone placed in "Piazza Matteotti".