Barletta (Italian pronunciation: [barˈletta] ⓘ; Salentino: Varrétte or Barlétte) is a city and comune in Apulia, in southeastern Italy.

The Ofanto river crosses the countryside and forms the border between the territory of Barletta and that of Margherita di Savoia.

This is a very important archeological site, remembered for the major battle in 216 BCE between the Romans and the Carthaginians, won by Hannibal.

Cannae flourished in the Roman period and then after a series of debilitating Saracen attacks, was finally destroyed by the Normans and then abandoned in the early Middle Ages.

[3] This episode was documented in 1833 by Massimo d'Azeglio, who wrote the novel "Ettore Fieramosca o la Disfida di Barletta".

The city at the time was fairly loosely besieged by French forces, and occupied by a Spanish army under the command of Gonzalo de Cordoba the 'Gran Capitan'.

Barletta has one gold medal for military valour and another one for civil valour, for its resistance to an incursion of German Fallschirmjäger who destroyed the port in order to prevent its falling intact into the hands of the advancing British Eighth Army during World War II.

The city is endowed with a very long, sandy coast stretching to both the east and the west from the commercial port.

This took place during the occupation of the city by Gonzalo de Cordoba, and served as a handy diversion for his restive siege-bound army.

The city was the capital of its district and the seat of the lower prefecture for the 120 years between 1806 and 1927 and sided with the French under Joachim Murat during the Napoleonic War.

Outbreaks of cholera took place in the city in 1836, 1854, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1886 and finally 1910 when the bacillus was brought back to Barletta by Barlettan fishermen, and killed tens of thousands all over southern Italy.

(London Times, 9 April 1866) A 100 year anniversary plaque to the five Protestant martyrs can be seen at the Evangelical Baptist Church (Italian, "Chiesa Evangelica Battista") of Barletta.

[6][circular reference] During World War II, the city was the site of the first episode of Italian conflict with German troops, when a battalion of Fallschirmjäger (parachutists) was sent from Foggia to Barletta to destroy the port before the British 8th Army could arrive, the Italian garrison surrendered after a brief struggle, thereby earning the Gold Medal of Military Valour and of Civilian Merit.