History and Etymology

The excavations at Mattinata have systematically acquired a partial knowledge of the complex, restricted to the areas of production and processing of oil [...] "(See M. Mazzei, A.M. Tunzi Sisto," The Ancient Gargano", Grenzi, 2005: 69, 126). Among some things anyway, we know that the city's origins date back to the fifth-sixth century BC, with the first presence of the population of the  "Me-tinates" (Pliny the Elder) or "Ma-tinates", some Dauni’s tribes of the Eurasian civilization,  landed from Illyria between the eighth and seventh centuries BC. The "Matinates" settled in the plain of Mattinata and on the rocky spur of Monte Matino (Monte Saraceno, where there is a necropolis).

The city was exposed to the Saracen and Slave invasions  until the seventeenth century, and of this difficult period remain the coastal lookout towers. From 1780 they began to build some houses on the hill called Castelluccio. The current centre of the city began to develop towards  the sixteenth century and the old town has many traces of the ancient populations, such as some masonry houses of the eighteenth century and several stone houses, called "haystacks" and belonging to earlier periods.

Quoted at least three times by Horace (65-27 BC), Mattinata is one of the most developed tourist areas of the coast resorts, with wide beaches, some of which reached only by sea, caves, rocky shores and two white “Faraglioni” of the “Mergoli” Bay. Mattinata is the ancient "Matinum" of the Romans. The story of "Matinum" in Roman times has been well developed by R. Perna, who writes: "[...] Three times Horace makes use of the adjective 'Matinus'.  Does anyone know what he referred by his line? L. Muller, in his 'Index Nominum et Rerum’ ("Index of the Names  and Things"), commenting on the Horace’s “Carmina”, notes, about Matinus: “ ‘Matinus’, Mons Apuliae' [" Matinus, a Mount of Puglia ']. For Porphyry (232-305 AD), the 'Litus Matinus' is the “mons  sive Promontorium Apuliae”, [ ‘the 'Mount or Promontory of Puglia’]; and for Pseudoacron (II century AD) it is the 'mons  Apuliae (...) Quidam volunt sive plana Calabriae' [The mountain of Apulia or, as some say, the plain of Calabria '] (...) Horace indicates the “Vertice  Matini sive Montis promontorii in Apulia”[the summit of Mount Matino or promontory in Puglia']. Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist., III, 185), also speaks of 'Metinates' (corrected Ma-tinates) ex Gargano '[ The "Matini” from Gargano'], and it was not difficult to understand that with that name was listed as a location corresponding to the current Mattinata at the foot of the Gargano, about one hundred meters high, a short distance from the sea.

Thus scholars have thought to recognize in the town of Mattinata, the location indicated by Horace as 'Matinus' [...] "(see R. Perna," The Latin Poets of Puglia”, Edipuglia, 2002: 204). The etymology of "Matinum" has been investigated with convincing  and valuable results by Professor Giovanni Alessio, who wrote that the location is "[...] clearly identified by place names like 'Matinus', a name of several mountains and hills (' Matina cacumina "Horace, Epode, XVI, 28; 'Litus matinus', Ad. 1, 28, 3), 'Matinatis', 'Metinatis' ex Gargano (hence 'Mattinata') of Pliny, 'Matino' (Lecce), 'Mateola' (Matera); West of the line- Venosa-Taranto there is  'Matina', in the sense of 'high ground, plot of land that is not downstream'; View Latino 'meta', or ' cumulation or conical or pyramid shape rock '[...] "(See Giovanni Alessio," Toponomastica  Calabrese”, Olschki, 1939, p. XIII). "Matinum" therefore means a "city set on a hill."

Some scholars did coincide "Mutinum" with the Greek city of "Apeneste" (etymologically the "city exposed to the East"), but it is very uncertain; indeed, M. Paone noted that "the site  of Apeneste is very questionable. It could be located between the ancient 'Mutinum' and “Merino” (See M. Paone, "Studi di Storia Pugliese," Congedo, 1972: 126). Another question has been raised by some scholars about the fact that "Mutinum" was a Roman "Municipium”;  in this sense E. Lippolis stresses that " even more fanciful are the assumptions about the existence of Municipalities of Mutinum and Merinum, located in the Gargano. The first was supposed  relying on Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), who remembers the 'Matinates'. But about the place  of 'Matinae' we don’t know virtually nothing "(See E. Lippolis," Between Rome and Taranto, Scorpio, 1997: 117). Moreover, the archaeological data are also uncertain about the exact location of "Matinum”. How  M. Mazzei and Tunzi Sisto explain, "[...] In the plain of Mattinata, in the area near the present Agnuli, was born in the first century BC a villa, mentioned in the nineteenth century by Captain Angelucci, who described the ruins of it, suggesting the identification with 'Matinum'.