The patron saint of Monopoli is Our Lady of the Madia, venerated in the co-cathedral dedicated to her. According to hagiographic tradition, her Byzantine icon landed in the town port on 16 December 1117, carried by a wooden raft that allowed the completion of the roof of the Romanesque cathedral then under construction: the work still represents today a fundamental point of synthesis between the figurative theology of the Greek East and the religious sensibility of the Latin West. It was Bishop Romualdo who began the construction of a larger church, completed ten years later thanks, according to tradition, to a miraculous intervention by the Madonna, to whom the new temple was dedicated; in 1742 the chapter canons decided to build the current cathedral, due to the ruinous state of the previous building.
The miraculous landing is re-enacted every year with two events: on 16 December, at dawn, a raft carrying the Madonna's icon arrives at the port, recreating the first arrival, followed by a solemn procession to the cathedral; on 14 and 15 August, in the summer celebration, the same event is re-enacted, pairing the religious programme with a rich civic one.
