TAVERN FARM CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST 
station of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of St. John, situated on a plot of private property, above the present site of ancient pre-existing Colonial Tavern, located on the outskirts west of the village, in the period after the transfer of headquarters from Rhodes to Malta in 1525.
This event brought about the shift because of the knights of the sea routes, with the abandonment of the port of Brindisi and the establishment of new relationships with that of Taranto, located in Mar Piccolo.
Our Taverna mail in a precise itinerary is therefore an important military outpost for the defense, territorial control and the collection and processing of agricultural products (oil, wine, wheat, etc..) Addressed to the Order troops , to be sent through the tratturo S. John Mar Piccolo, Battendieri the pier, where the load was done on the boats.
It should be noted that until the twelfth century, there existed on the shores of a small Benedictine abbey, most likely at the Convent of Battendieri founded in the sixteenth century., Where the nuns moved into the next century in the convent of S. John the Baptist in the Old City.
From this historical confirmation can be established with sufficient certainty that the same port in the Mar Piccolo was owned by the Benedictine order which took home the sacred Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The fate of
monteiasina Swap or grange, built after 1525, follows the fortunes of the Order of chivalry to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, when the riders reach the highest reputation with the defeat of the enemy turkish, which marks indeed, the 'beginning of their military decline.
sareceno fact when the danger that threatened the safety of pilgrims to the Holy Tomb was to decrease the power of defense carried the Knights of Malta, reduced in number, gradually abandoned their branch offices to focus the Mediterranean island held until the Napoleonic invasion of 1798.
is therefore likely that in the period 1572 to 1578 the paragraph, has been abandoned by the knights. This hypothesis can be confirmed by the absence of reference to the order during the interrogations in 1578 of visiting the holy Brancaccio.
From the perspective of the military complex composition, consisting of the Church, warehouses, and trappeto garden, originally surrounded by perimeter walls to mixtilinear trend, with probably the walkway, whose residual basal part, are clearly visible on the afferent channel where it is the conspicuous presence of pottery fragments of the `500.
Probably there was a defensive system of towers and bastions, allegedly verbally by Emanuele Esposito, of which unfortunately remains some documentation.
seems clear, however, that only a systematic excavation of the area within the city, will give a comprehensive answer and confirm the hypothesis raised, and shed light on an important page in the history of Monteiasi.
It can therefore be assumed that the military station of the Knights of Malta in Monteiasi, should be placed in a historical period lasted about 50 years when, after the exodus of St. John the laborers and peasants in the service of the Order, who were on site, began the foundation of a real house, came under the family Antoglietta.
