HISTORY :

In old times, Alberobello, whose name is derived from the Latin words Sylva Arboris Belli (the war-tree forest), was an oak wood that covered all the area.
Alberobello is now a town made up by the so-called Trulli extending on an area whose surface and subsurface are heavily affected by the erosive action of rain water. The stratified limestone rocks supply the building material that makes the town, as well as its surrounding landscape, unique. Since the 15th century, the area was populated by settlers who were given the land by the local lord in order to drain it and grow crops.
The reasons of the trulli being dry-wall buildings are probably to be traced back to the abuse of power by which the lord of the manor could arbitrarily chase the farmers away from their land without recognizing them any right, first of all the right to be “citizen”. In fact, at the beginning of the 17th century several families who had settled in the area of Alberobello – also attracted by the tax-exemptions granted by the Counts of Conversano – were considered inhabitants of the near-by town of Noci.