Brussels vs Barletta

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The City of Brussels (French: Ville de Bruxelles [vil də bʁysɛl] or alternatively Bruxelles-Ville [bʁysɛl vil]; Dutch: Stad Brussel [stɑd ˈbrʏsəl] or Brussel-Stad) is the largest municipality and historic centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, and the capital of Belgium. Besides the strict centre, in addition, it covers the immediate northern outskirts where it borders municipalities in Flanders. It is the administrative center of the European Union, thus often dubbed, along with the area, the EU's capital city. The City of Brussels is a municipality composed of the central historic city and certain additional regions within the greater Brussels-Capital Region, namely Haren, Laeken and Neder-Over-Heembeek to the north, as well as Avenue Louise/Louizalaan and the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos park to the south.

As of 1 January 2017, the City of Brussels had a whole population of 176,545. The entire area is 32.61 km2 (12.59 sq mi) which gives a population density of 5,475 inhabitants per square kilometre (14,180/sq mi). As of 2007, there were approximately 50,000 registered non-Belgians in the City of Brussels. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it's legally bilingual (French--Dutch).

Source: Wikipedia

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Barletta (Italian pronunciation: [barˈletta] (listen)) is a city, comune of Apulia, in south eastern Italy. Barletta is the capoluogo, together with Andria and Trani, of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani. It has a population of around 94.700 citizens. The city's territory belongs to the Valle dell'Ofanto, indeed, the Ofanto river crosses the countryside and forms the border between the territory of Barletta and that of Margherita di Savoia. The mouth of the river is in the territory of Barletta. The area of Barletta also includes part of the battlefield of Cannae. This is a very important archeological site, remembered for the major battle in 216 B.C. between the Romans and the Carthaginians, won by Hannibal. The site has been recognisied as Città d'Arte (city of art) of Apulia in the 2005 for the beautiful architecture. 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. Barletta is home to the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue, representing a Roman Emperor (perhaps Theodosius II). This statue, called "Eraclio" by the inhabitants of Barletta, is about 4 metres (13 feet) tall, and remains the biggest statue that survives from the late Roman Empire (i.e. the Roman Empire after Constantine). According to a local folk story, Eraclio saved the city from a Saracen attack. Seeing the Saracen ships approaching Barletta's coast, Eraclio waited for them on the sea shore.

Here Eraclio acted as if he was crying so the Saracens asked him why he was sad and Eraclio answered that he was sad because he was the smallest among Barletta's inhabitants and so everybody made fun of him. The Saracens thought that Barletta's inhabitants were all giants so left the coast, fearing to face them. In 1503 Barletta was the location of the disfida di Barletta ("Joust of Barletta"), a battle during which 13 Italian knights commanded by Ettore Fieramosca challenged and defeated an equal number of French knights who were at the time prisoners of war, in a joust held near Andria. This episode was documented in 1833 by Massimo d'Azeglio, who wrote the novel "Ettore Fieramosca o la Disfida di Barletta". In the book the author regards this episode as one of the earliest manifestations of Italian national pride. 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. Barletta also has the tragic reputation of being the location where the last 2 Protestants were burned alive at the stake in 1866 as a result of the Roman Inquisition which began in Italy in 1542.

Source: Wikipedia