History of Margherita di Savoia

The return of the inhabitants to the original territory (now Margherita di Savoia, then Saline)

happened around the end of the 12th century, following a project to recover the Lake of Salpi and Carlo III of Borbone's decision to buy back the salt-works of Barletta in 1753.

In full Enlightenment spirit, Vincenzo Pecorari, director of the salt-works, began important reclamation projects, making use of very highly qualified technicians, including the architect Luigi Vanvitelli. Pecorari organised a project systematic enough to considerably increase production. The people who precariously occupied the sandy tongue between the sea and the salt basin lived in different conditions. They, the so-called salt-workers, lived in miserable conditions, in straw huts often overturned and destroyed by the heavy seas.

Their conditions improved decidedly when, in the first half of the 19th century, the Royal Corp of bridges and roads, with a project by the director, Afan De Rivera, carried out a land reclamation project at the lake of Salpi and the surrounding swampy areas, which led to the creation of the large State Salt-works. Following important projects for the defence and control of the waters, enacted by Vanvitelli and those that followed him, the ancient unpaved road along which the straw huts were built gradually became the mother road around which this characteristic city-isthmus developed.

Towards Manfredonia, this road continues with State Road 159 of the Salt-works, which travels between the sea and the sheets of water. Naturally, today Margherita is not just a road, although it has undoubtedly retained certain characteristics of the “isthmus.” The image that it offers the visitor is, in fact, that of a regular “ribbon” of activity, that is developed parallel to enormous beaches: the bathing establishments first, then a long tract of seafront that is very animated in the summer, then the strip of shops and markets, then that of services. In the town centre, there is city hall and the modern and well-equipped Spa building, a centre for treatments with waters rich in chloride, bromide and iodine, which has recently been improved and revived.