An itinerary including some of the region’s most celebrated cathedrals and churches.
It was during the Romanesque period that great part of Puglia's most stunning works of architecture were built. In the years spanning the 11th to 15th centuries, from Capitanata all the way down to Salento, via the province of Bari, fervent construction work took place, resulting in the erection of magnificent houses of worship the majority of which have survived intact over the centuries and continue to attract a steady stream of visitors to this very day.
Any self respecting itinerary following the traces of Puglia's Romanesque period has to include a visit to the Sanctuary of San Michele at Monte S.Angelo, in the province of Foggia. Considered by Catholics to be one of the four most sacred sites in the world, it was here in the high Gargano promontory that the Archangel is said to have appeared sometime between 490 and 493 A.D., making the Sacred Mountain a destination of pilgrimage ever since. The Sanctuary of San Michele Arcangelo was built in the 13th century by Carlo I d'Angio. The austere edifice is almost entirely bereft of the ornamentation found in other religious buildings of the period.
In the cave in which it would seem the Archangel made his apparition there is an 11th century altar and a statue of Michael realised by Andrea Sansovino. Worthy of particular attention are the crypts, dating back to the Lombard period and discovered during excavation work carried out beneath the pavement of the basilica between 1949 and 1960. Once used to gain access to the cave, the walls of the crypts are scored with numerous inscriptions testifying to the passage of pilgrims from all over Europe.
It is believed that the crypts were closed off from the Sacred Cave around about 1270, when the Angevins gave the Sanctuary its present form, adding new constructions and at the same time sacrificing the previous artworks erected in honour of the Archangel. Whilst in the vicinity of Monte S.Angelo, visitors should take in another two authentic masterpieces just outside the town: the Abbey of Pulsano and the Church of S.Maria Maggiore.
Travelling South, towards the high plain of the Murge we come to Canosa, one of the most important archaeological sites in the whole of Puglia, where to find the Basilica of San Sabino, built during the Lombard period by the Duke Arechi II and initially dedicated to Saints John and Paul. A fine example of the Romanesque-Byzantine style, the basilica is built on a Latin cross plan and covered by 5 low domes.
Three windows light the apse, the central pane featuring a depiction of the patron saint.
The cathedral lies three meters below the Piazza via which visitors gain access to the building. The history of the Basilica of Canosa is a particularly tumultuous one - not only for the damage inflicted on the building by the earthquake of 1851. For a great length of time the Basilica was left off the tourist maps, overshadowed by the nearby cathedrals of Trani, Barletta, Giovinazzo and Bari.
Another obligatory port of call is, infact, Trani; where to find one of the best known examples of Puglian Romanesque: the Cathedral erected in honour of S.Nicola Pellegrino. This magnificent cathedral impresses not only with its size but also for the building's dazzling white stone façade which creates a beautiful contrast with the blue of the nearby sea.
The building of the edifice has been dated between 1159 and 1186, whilst it is estimated that construction of the splendid 58,90m. bell tower began in the 13th century, to be completed more than a hundred years later.
Other religious buildings to be seen whilst in Trani include the Church of SS. Trinità, the Church of S. Andrea and the Ognissanti Chapel, this latter hidden away amidst the maze of little lanes leading down to the old port. The Church conserves a typical feature found in Romanesque architecture; that of a portico preceding the façade and linked to the buildings which line the road. The building was built in the first half of the 12th century in the courtyard of the Ospitale dei Templari to whom it belonged until the suppression of the order in 1312.
A church which was not intended to be monumental and for this reason constructed following a simple rectangular plan, with three naves separated by columns the capitals of which were retrieved from other edifices. The principal portal is surrounded by a sculpted frame in the lunette of which scenes of the annunciation are depicted.
Visitors to Otranto, one of the Salento's most popular tourist destinations, cannot fail but be struck by the city's strikingly beautiful Romanesque Cathedral. Erected in 1088 - following the conquest by the Normans - it is the largest of all Puglia's churches: 54 meters long and 25 meters wide.
In memory of the ferocious attack inflicted on the city in 1480 by the Turks, under the guide of Solomon the Magnificent, numerous relics of its martyrs were conserved within the cathedral and can still be seen today in the Martyrs Chapel, where the bones and skeletons of some 800 victims are conserved in glass shrines.
On the facade of the cathedral there is an immense Gothic-Arabian style rose window dating back to the renaissance period. Perhaps the most impressive features found within the cathedral are the intricately carved capitals depicting eagles with outspread wings, heraldic birds, and lions.
Other fine examples of Romanesque art in the Salento are the Church of S. Pietro dei Samari in Gallipoli and that of SS. Nicolò and Cataldo in Lecce.
