The old basilica of Marsico was no longer enough, and in 1131 the count and the bishop of the city decided to build a new one, dedicated to the Virgin and to saint George Martyr, who was the town's first patron. It had three aisles and a front faced with small square slabs of marble.
What to see
The bell tower was added in 1293, and at its base is an inscription recalling who wanted it and attributing the work to a master named Silvestro. It is a spired tower, raised by one storey in later centuries, and together with the dome over the nave and transept it gives the complex the outline you see coming up the valley.
The rest is the result of continual repairs: in the seventeenth century earthquake and famine brought the town to its knees, and work on the cathedral and the bishop's palace went on for decades. There remain the tomb of the bishops, restored in the sixteenth century, and a stone cathedra carved in the seventeenth.
Visiting
The co-cathedral is in the old centre of Marsico Nuovo, inside the national park of the Lucanian Apennines, an hour by car from Potenza; free entry with hours tied to services. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Look for the inscriptions: one recalls the foundation, the other the building of the tower with the name of the master who made it. In the middle ages it was normal to write on stone who had paid and who had worked, and it is the only credit list that has reached us from those building sites. Reading them is the quickest way to give a name back to the builders.