The response of continental forelands to subduction and collision is a widely investigated topic in geodynamics. The deformation occurring within a foreland shared by two opposite‐verging chains, however, is uncommon and poorly understood. The Apulia Swell in the southern end of the Adria microplate (Africa‐Europe plate boundary, central Mediterranean Sea) represents one of these cases, as it is the common foreland of the SW verging Albanides‐Hellenides and the NE verging Southern Apennines merging into the SSE verging Calabrian Arc. We investigated the internal deformation of the Apulia Swell using multiscale geophysical data: multichannel seismic profiles recording up to 12‐s two‐way time (TWT) for a consistent image of the upper crust; high‐resolution multichannel seismic profiles, high‐resolution multibeam bathymetry, and CHIRP profiles acquired by R/V OGS Explora to constrain the Quaternary geological record. The results of our analyses characterize the geometry of the South Apulia Fault System (SAFS), a 100‐km‐long and 12‐km‐wide structure attesting an extensional (and possibly transtensional) response of the foreland to the two contractional fronts. The SAFS consists of two NW‐SE right‐stepping master faults and several secondary structures. The SAFS activity spans from the Early Pleistocene through the Holocene, as testified by the bathymetric and high‐resolution seismic data, with long‐term slip rates in the range of 0.2–0.4 mm/yr. Considering the position within an area with few or none other active faults in the surroundings, the dimension, and the activity rates, the SAFS can be a candidate causative fault of the 20 February 1743, M 6.7, earthquake.

The inner Apennines (Italy) are characterized by scattered outcrops of continent‐derived orogenic metamorphic units exposed along the Tyrrhenian coast from northern to southern Apennines. At least since the 1970s, some peculiar rocks exposed on Zannone Island (central Italy) have been described as the only Paleozoic‐Triassic metamorphic complex linking those exposed in the northern—with those in the southern Apennines. Assessing the protolith nature, thermobaric conditions, and structural features of what is accepted to be the metamorphic unit of Zannone is, therefore, crucial to elucidate the early paleotectonic evolution of the Apennines‐Tyrrhenian orogenic system. To that end, we interpreted seismic reflection profiles offshore Zannone, we carried out mesoscale and microscale structural investigations of representative outcrops on the island, performed X‐ray diffraction analysis, and K‐Ar and U‐Pb geochronology of representative clay gouge and syntectonic carbonate veins. Results show that the metamorphic rocks of Zannone can actually be reinterpreted as belonging to nonmetamorphic siliciclastic turbidites, likely deposited in foredeep settings, and coeval to the Oligocene‐Miocene Macigno Fm. of the northern Apennines. The turbiditic sequence was overthrust by Triassic dolostone in the early Miocene (~22 Ma), weakly deformed at <200°C, and downfaulted by postorogenic extensional faults starting ~7 Ma ago. Hence, Zannone represents a unique geological location in central Italy where to study the innermost (i.e. oldest) thrust sheet of the central‐northern Apennines, thereby shedding new light onto the early tectonics of the Apennines. Based on this evidence, a new evolutionary scheme for the early stage of the Apennines tectonic evolution is proposed.