The best walks and hikes around Bitetto

The Church of Santa Maria la Veterana is an ancient and fascinating medieval church, considered the oldest place of worship in the city. Although the exterior may appear simple and sober, its true treasure lies within: the walls are decorated with precious frescoes that once covered the entire structure. Many of these paintings, dating back to various periods (including a 13th-century "Virgin of the Platythera"), were rediscovered during restoration work. The church has very ancient origins, likely dating back to the 9th or 10th centuries, and is thought to have been built on the ruins of an early Christian church and, even earlier, a pagan temple dedicated to the goddess Demeter. This makes it an important testimony to the historical and cultural stratification of the area.

The Balsignano Monumental Complex is an ancient fortified medieval settlement. During your visit, you can visit this evocative archaeological and historical site, comprising a castle with double walls and two important churches: the Church of Santa Maria (with frescoes) and the Church of San Felice, the latter considered a masterpiece of Apulian Romanesque art with Byzantine influences. The complex dates back to the 10th-11th centuries and underwent various historical phases until its abandonment in the 16th century.

Trulli - or trullo when you’re talking about just one dwelling - were initially built to provide temporary field shelters and storehouses. Over time they also became permanent dwellings for agricultural families and labourers of smallholdings. The simple traditional lime whitewash that decorates the trulli’s exterior complements the local geology and pastoral landscapes. To protect against the elements and balance the temperature all year round, the trulli walls are incredibly thick, made up of a double skin filled with rubble. Similarly, the doorways and windows are small. These iconic rural dwellings began appearing as early as the 14th century, and their popularity originated because of a 15th century decree that made urban settlers pay taxes to the crown under feudal rule. If the king’s inspectors came collecting, the villagers could easily demolish these inexpensive buildings into a pile of stones and hide in the forest, and then rebuild them once they’d gone.

The "Torre del marchese Arcamone" is a fortified two-storey farmhouse whose last phase is certainly from the modern age, which has on the ground floor rooms for stables, warehouses and an oil mill. But what is its history and why is the district called this way? In 1399 the king of Naples, Louis, ceded the barony of Bitetto together with the fief of Ceglie and Bari, for having fought bravely in a war near Taranto, to Marcello Arcamone. Since 1382, during the reign of Charles III, he had come to Puglia with his brother Lionello, who had been given the Lordship of Ceglie. The Arcamone family lived in Bitetto for a long time. In 1407 Pope Martin V transferred Bishop the son of Marcello, Carlo Arcamone, from his seat in Venafro to Bitetto. The farm had many changes of ownership and in 1806, already belonging to the Noja family of Mola, it was confiscated for the abolition of the feudal regime.

Located at the end of Corso Garibaldi (formerly Via Santa Maria la Veterana), the Church of Santa Maria La Veterana (or Vetere), originally Santa Maria la Vetrana, is one of the churches in Bitetto located outside the walls, as well as one of the oldest. The oldest evidence of this building dates back to a document from 959, which speaks of a church consecrated to Santa Maria, while reading the coat of arms on the facade, if belonging to Mons. Scicutella, would allow us to date the reconstruction of the church to a period between 1294 and 1300. Having belonged to the Conventual Fathers with alternating fortunes , today there is no longer any trace of the annexed monastery. The church has a bare facade, softened only on the right side by the bell tower erected on the main portal and leaning against later buildings. Internally, the church is divided into three naves by heavy arches: round in the first span and pointed in the other two. The latter are lower than the first, while the supporting pillars are thicker; furthermore, a moulding frame runs along the walls above the arches and stops at the first span. All this testifies to the fact that the building went through at least two construction phases. The frescoes along the internal walls of the church are of fine workmanship, regarding the "Stories of the Virgin" (on the left side), the "Stories of Christ" (on the back wall) and the "Last Judgement" (on the right side). In the niche of the main altar there is a polychrome wooden statue depicting the Virgin; it also houses, after a recent restoration, an antependium with paintings on leather presumably of Cypriot origin, an 18th century wooden tabernacle and a finely crafted statue depicting Saint Ignatius of Loyola. In the square in front of the church, Icarus is on display , a work by the American sculptor Greg Wyatt.

Bitetto ist known for the presence of the remains of Blessed Giacomo , a lay friar who died in the odor of sanctity, whose body has remained intact over the centuries. The main monument of the town, the church of San Michele Arcangelo is one of the purest examples of Apulian Romanesque . The epigraph near the portal reveals that the facade was built in 1335 by Mastro Lillo da Barletta on commission from Bishop Bonocore, who wanted to rebuild the city temple on the site of an older cathedral. Bitetto had in fact been a diocesan seat since the 11th century . Oriented according to ancient custom with the presbytery to the east, the church has a severe façade divided into three parts by pilasters and equipped with a large archivolted rose window . Of the three portals, the central one is characterized by a rich sculptural apparatus: two stone lions, crouched on mighty corbels, support columns with capitals with vegetal motifs that support a lunette with bas-reliefs of Christ and the twelve Apostles. The external jambs instead present scenes from the New Testament. The interior, which was heavily plastered in the eighteenth century and was restored to its original Romanesque style in 1959 , is divided into three naves by triple-order wall partitions, where the double-arched arches are surmounted by false matronei and higher up by single-lancet windows. The transept has three apses according to the stylistic features of Apulian Romanesque. The fourteenth-century body is flanked on both sides by two eighteenth-century chapels, that of Purgatory (on the left) and that of the Blessed Sacrament (on the right). Outside, the bell tower, also dating back to the eighteenth century, rests on the Romanesque façade with a typical gabled structure.

The gate owes its name to the underground cisterns used to collect rainwater. For a long time it was one of the main accesses to the old, fortified city, where most of the population lived until the early 18th century.

Gateway to the village of Bitetto