If I had a masseria, I think I’d want it like this one: a luxury family residence with a big, spotless white, Spanish-style façade and five balconies on the piano nobile to see if the black wild horses are back from the woods, if the goats have gone into the shed, and if Brindisi and the Ionian Sea are glittering in the evening. The corner kitchen tiled with majolica ends in a big roof terrace, near St. Martin’s statue. A consecrated chapel, a bijou swimming pool (water has always been precious in the Murge, and the swimming pool came later – small and respectful of this dry land, as it should be), 18th-century trulli. This is how I wish my masseria was, lying on a hill where the air is wholesome and Martina Franca is so close. I would go and buy some sour-cherry-and-cream bocconotti in the historical Bar Adua for all those who are still asleep, and I would collect eggs in the hen house with a basket and the youngest child. I would forgo the seaside, which in fact is not far at all. Architecture, history, family, and the beautiful Valle d’Itria.

Words and pictures Meraviglia Paper.

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