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Also in the photograph is a conical, "beehive", roof that is a peculiar "style" for the Val d’Itri area. According to Rudofsky, trulli are "the archaic house form of an early megalithic civilization, they are related to the Balearic tlyots, Sardinian nuraghi, and the sesi of Pantelleria. Despite the passage of a dozen nations, this type has survived almost without change since the second millenium B.C." (1964:49). It is likely that the "white village" represents less of an "invisible hand" than the representation of either Spanish or Greek colonization. There is yet another description of contemporary trulli which argues that although the system of trullo construction already existed it was preserved because of feudalism which came to the territory at the end of the 15th century. In order to maintain the vulnerability of the newly created serfs, Feudal lords decreed that the shelters of peasants and shepherds had to be destroyable in only one night. "So the agglomerate of ‘casedde’ dry built with rustic local stone and destructible with swift manoeuvre in a short time arose" (Alberobello 1982). |
