Porta Bari, formerly called Porta de Bari, was one of the gates of the city of Altamura before the city wall was almost entirely pulled down in the nineteenth century. As in most European cities, the walls were demolished gradually because advances in technology and military techniques had made them essentially useless for defence.
What to see
In its present form the gate was built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before the rebuilding it was surmounted by a small church, the chapel of the Santissima Annunziata, which first appears in a document of 1490 as super portam de Bari; the records of later visits testify to some inconvenience, because it could be reached only by an awkward stair, placed above one of the city gates.
On the front is a scroll with an inscription attributed to Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori: «V'adoro ogni momento, o vivo pan del ciel, gran sagramento». The inscription refers to the sacrament of the Eucharist, and above it is a monstrance, originally of stone, in mazzaro like the whole structure; in 1939, for the first diocesan Eucharistic congress, it was removed and replaced with the iron one seen today. Below, the statues of the city's patron saints, Saint Irene and Saint Joseph, can be made out.
Visiting
The gate stands at the start of via Bari, in Altamura, and is often the first architectural work that tourists meet on entering the city. According to the sources consulted, the upper part of the gate and the attached Palazzo De Angelis-Viti have not yet been restored to their original colour, unlike the cathedral.
Our editors' tip
It is worth remembering the night between 9 and 10 May 1799, during the Altamura Revolution: through this gate, which was not then watched by guards, almost all the people of Altamura managed to flee, escaping Fabrizio Ruffo and the army of the Santa Fede. Outside the gate on 22 March 1799 the civic guard, parading with drums beating and the two standards, French and national, greeted the arrival of the departmental government. The gate and the attached building escaped demolition presumably because of their architectural merit or because they could not be separated from Palazzo De Angelis-Viti.
