The characteristic and grand farm "Il Cardinale" has certainly been there since 1197.
As a matter of fact there is a document which mentions "Mount Folicato", which is the first place -name of Poggiorsini.
This document also speaks about "Via Appia", (now it is Main Road linking Gravina to Spinazzola) through which, in those days, pilgrims and crusaders went to the Holy Land.
Those who refused to pay the duties for going through Via Appia, preferred going through a road called "Tratturo dei pezzenti" (or "Beggars' sheep-track", whose name derives from the first Crusade, which is just called "beggars").
Along the sheep-track therewas "La Capoposta" (that is the agritourist farm "il Cardinale"), so called because it was a stage where pilgrims and horses could rest and take meals, a sort of agritourist farm.
The following facts about the farm, "Il Cardinale", date back to the XV century, when the farm was already part of Orsini's domain and constituted its big zootechnical center. As from the X century, the Orsini's household was one of the major families in Italy.
Orsini's household was important for its power and its wealth, for its near relationship with the Empire and with the various royal European households, for giving Church Popes and famous Cardinals, Saints, Senators, Gonfaloniers, men-at-arms and statesmen.
The branch of the Duches of Gravina came up in the early of XV century. In 1658, when Pier Francesco Orsini became the twelth Duke Prince of Gravina he came into possession of the farm in the campagna of Poggiorsini, that is "Il Cardinale ", because he was Count of Gravina and landowner of Conversano, Terlizzi and Spinazzola.
As soon as he was twenty two years old, he became Cardinal, hence the name of the farm. On 29 May 1724 he ascended the papal throne and became Pope Benedetto XIII. Before him, other two members of Orsini's household ascended the papal throne, that is Celestino III, in 1191, and Niccolò III, in 1277.