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Tertiveri is the ancient Turtibulum, flourishing in the Middle Ages when it was the episcopal seat and center of various power struggles.
It is one of the fortified villages erected by the Byzantines in the eleventh century. to defend their rule in Puglia against the incursions of the Longobards from Beneventano. In addition to Tertiveri, this defensive line included Fiorentino, Troia, Dragonara, Civitate, Montecorvino, and Devia. All, with the exception of Troy, were abandoned in the late Middle Ages and today constitute an important archaeological heritage.
In the 13th century Tertiveri was a fief of Abd el Aziz, one of the Saracen leaders of Lucera, a city that from 1124 to 1300 was the largest Muslim center of the peninsula. When in 1300 the Angevins, amid atrocious massacres, put an end to the Saracen presence in Lucera, Tertiveri was also destroyed. The city was again razed to the ground in the transition from the Angevin to the Aragonese (1441), when Alfonso I of Aragon wanted to punish its inhabitants for having supported his rival, Renato d'Angiò, in the struggle for domination over southern Italy.
Today only the remains of a tower remain of the ancient Turtibulum; while the modern Tertiveri consists of a few houses grouped around the severe Baronial Palace of the sixteenth century.
