The patron saint of Altamura is Saint Irene, virgin and martyr, celebrated on 5 May.
The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, an example of Apulian Romanesque, dates from 1232, when Emperor Frederick II of Swabia, visiting the city, found the ruins of an ancient settlement there and decided to refound it, having the church built and placing it under his own patronage and that of his descendants: it remained a palatine church, exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, until 1929. To populate the new city, Frederick II called in settlers even from nearby towns, including Greeks and Jews from his kingdom, granting tax exemptions and dividing the settlement into four quadrants, Greek and Saracen to the east, Latin and Jewish to the west. After the 1456 earthquake the cathedral was restored and expanded, probably with a change to its original orientation.
In the Lamalunga cave, in October 1993, speleologists found the nearly complete skeleton of a Homo neanderthalensis, known as the Altamura Man, together with fossil remains of other Paleolithic animals.
