CASTLE AND ART GALLERY
The County of Conversano belonged to four noble houses, in succession: Altavilla, Brienne, Orsini del Balzo and finally Acquaviva d’Aragona. The feud lasted from 1054 to 1806. Originally a Norman fortress, in the 15th and 17th centuries the Castle was remodeled several times, until it was transformed into a sumptuous stately home. Inside it is now located the “Municipal Art Gallery”, where you can admire the large canvases of the seventeenth-century Neapolitan painter Paolo Finoglio, depicting episodes from the “Gerusalemme Liberata”, the famous epic poem by Torquato Tasso.
CATHEDRAL
The Cathedral, in Romanesque-puglise style, was built between the 11th and 12th centuries, renovated in the late Baroque style, and then in 1911, following a fire, restored to its original form. The gabled façade is characterized in the upper part by a fifteenth-century rose window with twelve rays and by three portals: the central one has a rich sculptural decoration with two column-bearing lions.
MONASTERY OF SAN BENEDETTO – ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
The Monastery of San Benedetto, called “Monstrum Apuliae” (Apulian wonder) because in 1274 Pope Gregory X conferred on the abbess (woman) bishopric functions (purely male), a situation almost unique in Western Christianity. The church and the medieval cloister are beautiful. Inside it is now located the Archaeological Civic Museum.
CHURCH OF SAN COSMA AND DAMIANO
In the seventeenth century the Counts of Conversano commissioned the restructuring of an ancient church in Baroque style, naming it after the Saints Cosma and Damiano, to whom they were particularly devoted, having received a grace. The decorative apparatus inside the church is sumptuous, an authentic triumph of the Neapolitan Baroque.
CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SANTA MARIA DELL’ISOLA
Located about 2 km from the city center, it was built in 1462 by the counts Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo and Giulio Antonio Acquaviva. The church with two naves today is in late Gothic style with mostly Renaissance interior furnishings. In the apse of the oldest nave there is the cenotaph (funeral monument without the body) of Giulio Antonio Acquaviva, killed in the siege of Otranto in 1481.
HUNTING LODGE MARCHIONE CASTLE
Elegant hunting lodge, built around 1730 by the Acquaviva d’Aragona counts in a wood, 6 km from Conversano. The building, whose construction is attributed to the architect Vincenzo Ruffo of the Vanvitellian school, has a square plan, with the four vertices characterized by circular stone towers.
MASSERIA LE CERASE
The ‘Masserie’ was a typical agricultural construction in Southern Italy, consisting of a set of buildings where the owners, farmers, shepherds and animals lived in close contact. “Le Cerase” is an important and rich farmhouse, with a chapel and fortified by walls and a defensive tower.
TOWER AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RUINS OF CASTIGLIONE
About 5 km from Conversano, on the top of a wooded hill, stands a high tower with a square base, together with the remains of a wall and the villaio di Castiglione, abandoned at the end of the 15th century.