Tradition has it that the church was founded by St. Francis and built at the expense of the D'Andrano in the thirteenth century. Inside the church there was a chapel, called D'Arco Andrano, in which were buried the members of that family. The church, with the adjoining convent, had a bell tower with three bells, but also other altars manor, under the name of several saints, with many ancient tombs, even princely. The destruction of the antiquities came in 1727 when, having subtracted the Convent to the ordinary jurisdiction, the Father Donato Antonio Alberico da Gioia provident immediately to extensive vandalism and restoration. A few years after countryman Don Francis Xavier Fontana tried to restore the church to its ancient splendor redeploying some of the old material, and so today you can see a door on the sixth floor in the east, a sixth floor window jambs and scrap of another ancient window behind the church, in the square Luca D'Andrano. Of the many ancient tombs, nothing remains, except for the large polychrome marble tomb of Prince Charles I De'Mari. To note the paintings seventeenth and late eighteenth-century altars of St. Joseph of Cupertino, Madonna and Child Madonna of Mercy, but also the beautiful chorus of fir wood carved eighteenth century. We have 11 days in Puglia..today we're Driving through Gioia del Colle, Puglia, Italy (Nov 8, 2011) ©2011 Rebecca Dru Photography All Rights Reserved www.rebeccadru.com www.flickr.com/rebeccadru www.twitter.com/rebeccadru www.facebook.com/rebeccadruphotography www.instagram.com/rebeccadru
We have 11 days in Puglia..today we're Driving through Gioia del Colle, Puglia, Italy (Nov 8, 2011) ©2011 Rebecca Dru Photography All Rights Reserved www.rebeccadru.com www.flickr.com/rebeccadru www.twitter.com/rebeccadru www.facebook.com/rebeccadruphotography www.instagram.com/rebeccadru
