The church of Ognissanti, also called that of the Templars or of Purgatory, is a Romanesque church in Trani of the twelfth century, on the shore of the harbour. It arose outside the city walls, which would include the whole harbour only with the extension ordered by Frederick II, probably with its own landing stage.
What to see
The most characteristic part of the exterior is the back, facing the sea, with three small projecting semicircular apses recalling the rear of the church of the Vallisa in Bari; other analogies with the Bari church are the front portico, the closeness to the sea, the period of construction and the presence of the Ravello community. On the facade is a portal with a richly carved band, and the aisles are entered through three rectangular doors topped by lunettes: in the central one an Annunciation can be recognised, in the left one two peacocks feeding on a vine branch, a symbol of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The interior is rectangular, with three naves and a double portico, divided by columns supporting round arches; the columns of the central nave are of African granite, the central nave has a trussed roof and the aisles have cross vaults. Among the canvases is a sixteenth-century Madonna and Child with Byzantine influences, by the madonnaro Rico da Candia.
According to tradition the church was linked to the Templar Order, but no documents connect it directly with the Templars; much more likely is the influence of the colony of merchants from Ravello, very numerous in the city in the Middle Ages, as shown by a bequest of a vineyard to the church in 1170 by the Ravello notary Orso Rogadeo. The only historical evidence is a plaque near the right-hand door, probably of the twelfth century, with the epitaph of the abbot and physician Constantine. In its early days the church was probably a place of blessing for crusaders leaving for the Holy Land; beside it a narrow lane, called Angiporto, led straight to the sea and was closed in the nineteenth century. In 1479 the church was given to Pietro Lambertini, and the family, originally from Ravello, kept the patronage until 1780; the coats of arms of the Lambertini, the Rogadeo and the Achonzaico are carved on the lintel of the sacristy door. From the early nineteenth century, with the transfer of the cult of the souls in Purgatory, it took the popular name of church of Purgatory; it was a parish from 1932 to 1975 and, after being closed, was reopened for worship in the second half of the nineties.
Visiting
The church is on the shore of Trani harbour, and its facade faces the street of the same name, covered by the outer portico and by houses built above it. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: check them.
Our editors' tip
Some studies have looked for astronomical references in the complex: the axis of the church points to where the sun rose on 1 November of the year 1100, according to some scholars in relation to the feast of All Saints; on the days of the equinox the sun's rays strike a capital of the front portico carved with a figure attributed to the Egyptian goddess Isis, and at the winter solstice a cruciform pillar.
