![]() If you travel just outside the town you can find another source of joy, a tiny winery called Pietraventosa, which translates as windy rock. Time has not served the castle well but what remains is impressive enough, even though it is now surrounded by a huddle of shabby edifices that cramp its still discernible style. Many of these castles survive and one is in a town called Gioia del Colle or Joy of the Hill. From this you will realise that he was a man of great energy and he spent a lot of his life in Puglia where he built a network of defensive castles. He was excommunicated three times and had three or possibly four wives, depending on whose history you read. A highly cultured man, he spoke six languages including Arabic and Greek, so he knew at least three alphabets, and had a great interest in science and philosophy. Born on Boxing Day, 1194, by the age of three he was King of Sicily and went on to become King of Germany and Jerusalem as well as being Holy Roman Emperor. Let me give you a brief biography of the man. Vinnie looks bemused “Frederico who?” he enquires. For me, the raw emotional pleading of Mick Jagger’s lyrics to Sympathy for the Devil and the sublime philosophical perfection of Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda will always amaze – but we are in Puglia, land of the Primitivo grape and Frederico II. Those of our youth often appear to us as gods, and though, through the focussing lens of time, their status may be diminished to that of mere mortals, their lasting achievements shine the brighter.
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