Giulio Antonio Acquaviva d'Aragona was an Italian leader, 7th Duke of Atri (from 1462), 1st Duke of Teramo, Count of Conversano and of Castro San Flaviano and lord of Forcella, Roseto, Padula, etc., was the son of Giosia Acquaviva, count of Castro San Flaviano and duke of Atri, and of Antonella Migliorati of the lords of Fermo.
In 1456 he married Caterina Orsini Del Balzo (natural daughter of Giovanni Antonio Orsini Del Balzo Prince of Taranto), Countess of Conversano, Lady of Turi, Noci, Castellana, Casamassima, Bitetto and Gioia del Colle.
After the famous battle of San Flaviano (or battle of the Tordino) between Francesco Sforza and Niccolò Piccinino (25 July 1460), San Flaviano was sacked by the soldiers of Matteo di Capua the following year and reduced to rubble. Instead of restoring the city, Giulio Antonio Acquaviva in 1471 preferred to build a new one higher up near the ancient city: Giulia Nova.
In 1478 he commanded the fleet that supported the Neapolitan army of Ferdinand of Aragon, who had joined the coalition established by Pope Sixtus IV against Florence. For having guided and advised the duke of Calabria, the king's brother, he was awarded the Order of the Ermine. Also with the privilege of the King of Naples on 30 April 1479, he received the honor of being able to add the name of Aragona to his surname and to take over the family coat of arms with the insignia of the Royal House.
In 1480 he went to Puglia to fight the Turks, who had taken Otranto and threatened Brindisi. He linked his fame to the campaign for the reconquest of Otranto (1481), during which he lost his life in an ambush; his body was beheaded and the head was taken by the Turks and sent to Constantinople near the Sultan as a war trophy and never returned for any ransom, despite the pressure of the sovereign himself. The body is buried, together with his wife, in the church of Santa Maria dell'Isola in Conversano, in a funeral monument by the Apulian sculptor Nuzzo Barba.