Appia Road Segment 24

From PALAGIANO (Ad Canales) to Farm GALEONE (Mesochorus) from SOUTH

This segment is scarce in historical artefacts and is perhaps recognisable in the secondary road that from Palagiano (Ad Canales) joins the modern Appia road at the Bellavista railway station.

The route has only two certain references: the passage upstream of the springs of the river Tara and the remains of a bridge over the Gennarini ravine near the Farm Gennarini.

Shortly after the bridge, two routes are hypothesised:

– the older one – internal – reaching Taranto (*), the Municipium Tarentinum;

– and the later variant – external – passing north of the “Mare Piccolo”, thus shortening the route to Brindisi (Brundisium).

It is difficult today to identify the point of separation between the trunk that crosses Taranto (Tarentum) and the one that goes around it, due to the changes in the territory (steel plant, new railway, new road system).

The one that crosses the entire city of Taranto then passes by the Farm Galeone, a probable statio Mesochorus, but it has no certain references, except for a 200 m trunk unearthed in the Cimino locality in 1961 and the one recently found near the Farm Rhao.

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is worth a visit.