The mother church of Montemilone dates from 1861, yet it holds something nearly six centuries older: the wooden statue of the Madonna del Bosco, also called Santa Maria Gloriosa, probably carved at the end of the thirteenth century. The present building, wanted by Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, was designed by Nicola Maria Bevilacqua of Minervino Murge after a run of rejected proposals - the municipal records list them one by one - and put up by the brothers Francesco Saverio and Pasquale Panzini of Molfetta over an earlier Gothic church, of which only stretches of the perimeter walls remain. That older church is described in a manuscript of 1729 and in the dictionary of the Kingdom of Naples compiled by the abbot Francesco Sacco in 1796.
What to see
The statue is roughly carved and has no parallel in Basilicata. The Virgin sits enthroned and holds the Child against her breast; the diadems point to French work of the post-Carolingian period and to Cluniac influence, while the robes and the painted decoration are Byzantine, as is the composition itself, close to the Madonna Hodegetria. Byzantine too is the Child's blessing hand: index and middle finger open, the others closed.
The rest belongs to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Latin-cross plan, a single nave with six side chapels - Santa Rita, San Rocco and Santo Stefano on the right, Sant'Antonio, Santa Lucia and the Madonna del Bosco on the left - pilasters with Ionic capitals, a coffered barrel vault and a dome where nave and transept cross. The four pendentives carry the evangelists, painted in 1946 by Domenico Pennino of Avellino with his son Rocco and some local workmen. The great apse window of 1939 came from the Pizzarini workshop in Bari: Stephen holds the palm of martyrdom and the lectionary in his left hand and, in his right, the stone that killed him. Behind the high altar stands the pipe organ built in 1934 and enlarged five years later at the wish of the parish priest, don Vincenzo Merra.
Visiting
The facade is of Minervino limestone, the perimeter walls faced with roughly squared rubble: look at them before you go in, because that is where the Gothic church survives. Inside, the statue is not always in place: during the patronal feast it is carried out to the sanctuary of the Gloriosa, outside the village. The building was reworked over and over from 1904 to 1991, both after earthquakes and to keep up with changes in worship.
Our editors' tip
Get close to the statue and count the fingers of the Child's hand: two open, three closed, the Greek blessing rather than the Latin one. That detail places the work far better than any date does.