Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet Eraclio

THAT GENTLE AND SMART GUY…
If you visit BARLETTA (6th most inhabited municipality of Apulia with its 95,000 inhabitants), right in the centre you will find a big bronze statue which is the symbol of the city: ladies and gentlemen, please meet Eraclio.

A lot of people tried to explain how this monument got here (it’s almost sure it was forged somewhere else) and which historical figure this fellow stands for, but still today we have no univocal answer and a touch of mistery lingers on this angry dude (well, looking at his face, he looks like he wants to tell you off for something you said, like a dad to his child).

The inhabitants of Barletta believe Eraclio was a giant (5m/more than 15 feet tall, the same size as the statue itself) but he was a calm, peaceable guy.

One day the Barlettani saw pirates coming from the sea and started panicking because they were not ready to fight to protect the town! As a solution, they decided to send the „Colosso“ to the beach in order to frighten the aggressors. These evil buccaneers reached the shore and – kind of surprised – saw this enormous human being crying like a kid. „What’s the matter, man? Why are you weeping?“ – “All the other people in the town are making fun of me because I’m the shortest one…” Guess what? They didn’t wait long before sneaking off.