Modugno means «in the middle»: from Medunium, in medio, because it stood halfway between Bitonto and Bari, and in the Roman centuriation its first nucleus rose exactly on the boundary between Bitonto's ager and Bari's. That boundary is still in the fields: in the Modugno countryside stand the «titoli», the Renaissance markers that traced it. The first time the name appears in a document is in May 1021, and it is no solemn act: a certain Traccoguda «de loco Medunio» lends eight soldi to two men of Bitetto and takes a vineyard in pledge. A town begins like that, with a loan and a vineyard.
Outside the built-up area lies one of the finest medieval sites in Puglia: Balsignano, the fortified farmstead attested from 962, sacked by the Saracens, rebuilt, passed to the Benedictines and finally destroyed in 1526 in the war between Angevins and Aragonese. There remain the walls, the towers, the church of San Felice on a Greek cross with its dome on an octagonal drum, and that of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, which keeps fragments of fresco of the Sienese school; beside them the remains of a Neolithic village have come to light. In another gully, towards Carbonara, a rock church sheltered Basilian monks fleeing the iconoclast persecutions, and above it grew an abbey that was a stage for Holy Land pilgrims all through the Middle Ages. Today Modugno is part of Bari's productive core, with one of the most active industrial zones in the South: Bari is ten minutes away, and the Murgia begins behind the last shed.
Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista · Chiesa di Sant'Agostino · Chiesa di Santa Maria del Suffragio and 3 more
Burrata di Andria
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Nearest airport: Bari Palese, 6 km away
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📅 Every year, from the Friday before the fourth Sunday of September to the following Monday, jointly celebrating Saint Nicholas of Tolentino and Saint Roch
Modugno jointly celebrates Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, its patron, and Saint Roch of Montpellier, its protector, from the Friday before the fourth Sunday of September to the following Monday, with both popular and religious events.
Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista Modugno's small fourteenth-century church, built on a pilgrims' hospice, with shell and gourd on the doorway. Chiesa di Sant'Agostino The Augustinians' church in Modugno, grown from a Faenza family chapel, with eighteenth-century stuccoes. Chiesa di Santa Maria del Suffragio Modugno's church of Purgatory, with its seventeenth-century wooden door and canvases attributed to Carlo Rosa. Chiesa di Santa Maria Immacolata The Capuchin church of Modugno, of 1589, with the cloister of the former convent and the statue of the Immacul Palazzo Cesena The palace of 1691 in the centre of Modugno, with its roof loggia, chapel and the Calò-Cesena coat of arms. Palazzo Valerio-Longo Modugno's late Renaissance palace, with loggias carved with small heads, rustication and a family chapel. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Modugno, but an easy day trip away.
