What to see · Molfetta

More places of interest

• Chiesa Madonna della Rosa

  The tower-church of the Madonna della Rosa stands in Molfetta, along via del Mino, on the provincial road to Bitonto, and has a machicolation, a well and a cistern. It dates from the early decades of the sixteenth century.

  What to see

  A testimony from the middle of the sixteenth century, reported by Francesco Samarelli, documents its administration by a «razionale». In 1581 the canons Cesare Monno and Giovan Battista Schifosa were procurators of the church on behalf of the Cathedral Chapter; a receipt in the Diocesan Archive shows that they held liturgical objects donated by local worshippers. In the seventeenth century the church was requested by Hieronymite hermits as the seat of a grange, and in 1649 a Genoese, Giovanni Sambuceto, asked to be buried in the chapel, as the Cathedral registers attest.

  The dedication comes, according to Antonio Salvemini (Saggio storico della città di Molfetta, 1878), from the roses held in the hands of the Madonna and the Child shown on the altar, a symbol of Mary's «maternal charity», also called the «Mystical Rose»; the title sometimes appears as «delle Rose», but the most common form is «Madonna della Rosa». Around the little church, above all from the nineteenth century, a residential settlement grew up, at first seasonal: well-off families had their country houses there and spent the summer months, bringing up their children in contact with nature. Today the church is the seat of the Madonna della Rosa parish, which is building a new parish complex.

  Visiting

  The church is along via del Mino, on the provincial road to Bitonto, in a settlement now absorbed into the urban expansion of Molfetta. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.

  Our editors' tip

  The place is tied to the popular tradition of the outing on Easter Tuesday, attested from the nineteenth century and later moved forward to Easter Monday after the liturgical reform of 1955.

• Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II

  Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II is in the heart of Molfetta's built-up area: named after the king at the end of the nineteenth century, after Italian unification, it still has the monument to the Savoy sovereign.

  What to see

  Today the area is central, but in the second half of the eighteenth century it was the town's new expansion area, which grew up from the Largo Cavalletti, named for the patrician Don Salvatore Cavalletti, owner of the land: this, according to historical documents, is what the square used to be called. It was also known as Largo Piscina Nuova, from the district of the same name set aside for urban expansion, and Largo Santa Teresa, from the convent of the Dominican nuns and its church. Beneath the present public garden lies an old rural cistern for collecting rainwater, the «piscina nuova». In 1790 the new road from the Pozzo dei Cani to the Largo Cavalletti was laid out, made necessary by the completion, in 1789, of the Strada Consolare di Puglia from Bisceglie to Molfetta.

  On the square stands Palazzo de Dato, formerly Palazzo Cavalletti, built between 1757 and 1759 by Don Salvatore Cavalletti as a staging post for changing the horses of the carriages and coaches arriving on the road from Terlizzi, which then passed right through the palace's main doorway; the many iron rings on the walls of the inner courtyard survive. The façade, marked by a triple pair of pilasters on either side of the portal, has a broad central balcony in the shape of a bicorne hat that does not rest on the usual projecting brackets but bears its weight solely on the portal.

  Visiting

  The square is in the centre of Molfetta and has a public garden. The sources consulted do not say whether the interior of Palazzo de Dato can be visited: check it.

  Our editors' tip

  When the extra-virgin olive oil trade of the De Dato family, owners of the palace after the Cavalletti, was at its most flourishing, the oil, produced in large quantities in the adjoining olive mill, was exported as far as the port of Marseille and the ports of Dalmatia, in particular Ragusa, present-day Dubrovnik.

• Chiesa della Morte

  The church of Santa Maria de Principe, today known as the church of the Morte, stands in the historic centre of Molfetta and is tied to the history of the Arciconfraternita della Morte, the Archconfraternity of Death.

  What to see

  The Archconfraternity was founded on 26 April 1613 by thirty-eight gentlemen who wanted to give a decent burial to those who, out of poverty, could not afford one and were often left in the street after death, since at that time there were as yet no cemeteries. In January 1614 it obtained aggregation to the Roman archconfraternity and in the same year 1614 it settled in this church, where it remained until 1 March 1739, when it moved definitively to the church of the Purgatorio, where it still has its seat.

  The history of the Passion statues is also tied to the church. Those the Archconfraternity carried in procession between the late seventeenth century and the mid twentieth, replaced one by one by new ones, were kept in the old little church of the Morte, in Molfetta Vecchia, until the middle of the nineteen-sixties; they then passed to the Bishop's Seminary and are today in a dedicated exhibition room of the Diocesan Museum of Molfetta. The statues that go out in procession today on Passion Friday and Holy Saturday are the work of the Molfetta sculptor Giulio Cozzoli.

  Visiting

  The church is in the historic centre of Molfetta, in Molfetta Vecchia. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.

  Our editors' tip

  A study by C. Pisani is devoted to the church, «La ecclesia medioevale di sancta Maria de donno Principe», contained in the volume La chiesa Santa Maria de Principe e l'Arciconfraternita della Morte (Tipografia Mezzina, Molfetta, 2003).

• Chiesa Santissimo Crocifisso

  The church of the Most Holy Crucifix, also called that of the Capuchin Fathers, stands in piazza Margherita di Savoia in Molfetta and adjoins the monastery built by the Capuchins.

  What to see

  The convent was built between 1571 and 1575, although work continued until 1617. A document of the late sixteenth century says the church was still not completed.

  On the high altar one can admire a wooden crucifix of the Venetian school, donated in 1682 by the priest don Francesco Antonio Cucumazzo, or Cucomazzo. Its backdrop is an altarpiece showing Calvary, painted in the same year 1682 by the cleric-painter from Bitonto Nicola Gliri. At the base of the canvas are two coats of arms; one belongs to the donor's family and is a shield divided into two equal parts, with on the right the blazon of his father, Giovanni Leonardo Cucumazzo of Ruvo, and on the left that of his mother, Chiara Donata di Simone Esperti.

  Visiting

  The church is in piazza Margherita di Savoia, in Molfetta, beside the former Capuchin monastery. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.

  Our editors' tip

  A study of the church of the Capuchin Friars of Molfetta by C. Pisani exists, attached to issue no. 74 of the periodical «La Città» (September-October 2011), in the series «Le cento chiese di Molfetta».

• Pulo di Molfetta

  The Pulo di Molfetta is a karst collapse doline about a kilometre and a half south-west of the centre of Molfetta. It formed when the roof and dividing walls of one or more caves and tunnels gave way, part of a complex karst system; the process is still under way.

  What to see

  The shape is roughly circular, with a diameter of about a hundred and eighty metres at most and about a hundred and forty at least, and the floor lies about thirty metres below the rim. The walls, practically vertical around almost the whole perimeter, show the layers of the Lower Cretaceous limestone and are dotted with numerous caves on several levels, such as the so-called «grotta del Pilastro». It is the smallest of the three best-known «puli» of the province of Bari and the doline of this kind closest to the coast, a little under a kilometre as the crow flies: for this reason it can be considered the youngest in geological terms.

  The site keeps traces of several periods. In the Middle and Lower Neolithic the communities lived in open-air villages on level ground, not in caves as is sometimes believed; the remains found in the surroundings, above all in the Azzollini and Spadavecchia plots, where the first discoveries were made in 1900, gave their name to the «Molfetta type» pottery. On the rim to the west-south-west stands the former Capuchin convent, now owned by the Comune, built in 1536 by Giacomo Paniscotti and active until about 1574, when the friars moved to a larger convent closer to the town; the building was then used as a lazaretto for people with contagious diseases. In 1784 the Bourbon government authorised a saltpetre works on the floor of the doline, a factory making gunpowder from saltpetre, whose remains were excavated and restored up to 2003.

  Visiting

  The site has been open to the public again since the end of November 2008, after the closure that followed the collapses and subsidence caused by the earthquake of 1980. The process of collapse is still going on: entering the caves and approaching the walls is expressly forbidden, because of the risk of falling boulders or small stones. Only cave no. 1, of the 14 listed in the old cave register, has been made safe and can be visited: it contains a tomb with a cast of the bone finds from the excavations carried out between 1995 and 2003 under the direction of Francesca Radina of the Soprintendenza. The doline is owned by the Province of Bari; opening hours and access arrangements should be checked.

  Our editors' tip

  According to documents already ancient in the time of the Molfetta naturalist Giuseppe Maria Giovene, the original name of the Pulo was «gurgio S. Leonardi»; the origin of the word pulo is unknown, but it is attested from the seventeenth century.

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