The patron saints of Ruvo del Monte are Saint Roch, celebrated in the church dedicated to him, and Saint Donatus the martyr, on 18 August. The relics of Saint Donatus were given by Pope Pius VI and placed under the high altar: the saint's body, kept in an urn, arrived in Ruvo from the Roman catacombs on the second Sunday of August 1783, thanks to the efforts of Father Francesco Antonio De Paola, born in the town and cousin of the venerable Domenico Blasucci, Redemptorist provincial for the Papal States.
Over its history, the fief of Ruvo underwent several invasions and devastations: that of Louis of Hungary in 1348, during the war of succession to the throne of Naples, and that of the condottiero Antonio Caldora, in the pay of René of Anjou, who burned the town in 1435 for having supported the Aragonese cause. On 10 August 1861, in more recent times, the town was invaded and plundered by bandit gangs led by Carmine Crocco and Ninco Nanco. The mother church of Santa Maria Assunta has origins around the year 1000, although it only began to be used as the mother church around the 14th century: the first document concerning it dates from 1519, when the Bishop of Muro Lucano granted a local family the jus patronatus of an altar.
