The patron saint of Molfetta is Saint Conrad of Bavaria, celebrated on 9 February: he was one of the many pilgrims who, bound for the Holy Land, stopped over in the town, equipped with a crusaders' hospital built near the basilica of the Madonna dei Martiri to welcome those travelling to Jerusalem. Conrad chose to remain in Molfetta, later becoming its patron saint. His bones are kept, in a gold and silver bust by Neapolitan craftsmen, in the grand cathedral dedicated to the Assumption, a former Jesuit convent just outside the town walls, which also holds a large painting by the famous 18th-century Molfetta-born painter Corrado Giaquinto, after whom Bari's metropolitan picture gallery is named.
The town's co-patron is the Madonna dei Martiri, venerated in the basilica of the same name about two kilometres from the centre, towards Bisceglie: the current church stands partly on an 11th-century building, of which a dome and the underlying structure, where the altar now stands, remain, while on one side the Ospedaletto dei Crociati, contemporary with the old church, is still visible. Since the first half of the 19th century, Molfetta's sailors have chosen the Madonna dei Martiri as their protector: on 8 September 1846 the statue of the Virgin, the work of Neapolitan sculptor Giuseppe Verzella, was placed on two sailing bilancelle and carried to the quay of the old Seminary, next to the old Duomo.
