Manfredonia

Sister cities

• Ceprano

History

The area of current Manfredonia was settled in ancient times by the Greeks. In 189 BC Sipontum was conquered by the Romans and became a colony of citizens. It was a port at the junction of the road which basically followed the Adriatic coast (but giving the Garganus mountain's peninsula just north a miss) and a road through Arpi, Luceria, Aecae and Aequum Tuticum connecting at Beneventum to the Via Appia. In AD 663 it was taken and destroyed by the Slavs (Narentines). In the 9th century, Sipontum was for a time in the power of the Saracens. In 1042 the Normans made it the seat of one of their twelve counties, while the Monte Gargano remained Byzantine. The Normans won a decisive victory there over the Byzantine general Argyrus in 1052. Siponto was an archbishopric in the Norman countship of Apulia. Having become unhealthy owing to the stagnation of the water in the lagoons after the 1223 earthquake, Siponto was abandoned. The modern city of Manfredonia was built by King Manfred between 1256–1263, several kilometers north of the ruins of the ancient Sipontum. The Angevins, who had defeated Manfred and stripped him of the Kingdom of Sicily, renamed it Sypontum Novellum ("New Sypontum"), but that name never stuck. In 1528 Manfredonia resisted a French attack led by Odet de Foix, Viscount of Lautrec. In 1620 the city was sacked by the Ottomans, who enslaved a few hundred people and burnt the city.

Geography

Manfredonia is located in south of Gargano. It borders with the municipalities of Carapelle, Cerignola, Foggia, Monte Sant'Angelo, San Giovanni Rotondo, San Marco in Lamis and Zapponeta. It counts 7 civil parishes (frazioni): Borgo Mezzanone, Riviera Sud (Sciali and Ippocampo), Pastini, Ruggiano, San Salvatore, Siponto and Tomaiuolo.

Most-observed species

• Early Spider-Orchid

  Ophrys sphegodes Mill. · Liliopsida
  207
• Sawfly Orchid

  Ophrys tenthredinifera Willd. · Liliopsida
  190
• Pink-butterfly Orchid

  Anacamptis papilionacea (L.) R.M.Bateman, Pridgeon & M.W.Chase · Liliopsida
  174
• Ophrys lutea Cav.

  Ophrys lutea Cav. · Liliopsida
  163
• Naked-man Orchid

  Orchis italica Poir. · Liliopsida
  142
• Green-Winged Orchid

  Anacamptis morio (L.) R.M.Bateman, Pridgeon & M.W.Chase · Liliopsida
  139
• Ophrys ×flavicans Vis.

  Ophrys ×flavicans Vis. · Liliopsida
  104
• Gargano Iris

  Iris bicapitata Colas. · Liliopsida
  95

Most recent

• M 3.9 — 2025-03-14
  14 km SSE of Isole Tremiti, Italy
• M 5 — 2025-03-14
  14 km NNE of Lesina, Italy
• M 4 — 2024-11-09
  5 km W of Larino, Italy
• M 4 — 2023-07-26
  2 km WNW of Calitri, Italy
• M 4.1 — 2023-06-21
  14 km E of Isole Tremiti, Italy
• M 4.3 — 2022-09-03
  40 km NE of Isole Tremiti, Italy