This cathedral has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that its history can be told as a list of earthquakes. First the men of Melfi razed it, at the end of the twelfth century; then the tremors saw to it, one after another, down to the one of 1980. Each time it was raised again with whatever was left of the last one.
What to see
The rarest thing is the signatures. The main doorway carries the name of Melchiorre da Montalbano, who finished the rebuilding in 1253; the bell tower is dated 1209 and bears the signature of master Sarolo of Muro Lucano. Two medieval craftsmen leaving their names on the same building, forty years apart, is an uncommon case.
The interior is the result of this history: pieces of different ages put back together, with the seventeenth and eighteenth-century rebuildings over the medieval structures. After the earthquake at the end of the seventeenth century it was a visiting pope who gave the money to repair the damage, and the church was raised once more.
Visiting
The co-cathedral is in the centre of Rapolla, on the road between Melfi and Venosa, ten minutes by car from the Vulture; free entry with hours tied to services. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Look for the two signatures, one on the doorway and one on the bell tower, and read them. In the middle ages those who built almost never left their names: here two men wanted it known who had done the work, and eight centuries and five earthquakes later we still know it.
