Italian itineraries: Ruvo di Puglia

Ruvo di Puglia is a town in the province of Bari. Reachable from the SS98, it's a small town but rich in monuments. The cathedral of Ruvo di Puglia is one of the best-known examples of Apulian Romanesque. It was built between the 12th and 13th centuries with various later alterations. The façade has a gable with three portals: the central one larger and more richly decorated, and two smaller and plainer side portals.

The façade is adorned with numerous figures: concentric arches depicting the Last Supper and Christian symbols, telamons supporting the whole façade, columns with richly decorated capitals, griffins, a mullioned window with a bas-relief of the Archangel and a rose window formed of 12 rays culminating in a smaller rose window; above the rose window is the "sedente" (seated figure), a rather dark and unknown figure, and at the top of the façade the little statue of Christ the Redeemer. The interior is divided into three naves and a transept crossing the naves. The central nave is the largest and is surrounded at the top by a gallery that sits above two rows of columns, each one different from the next. At the end of the central nave is a beautiful ciborium built in the 1800s inspired by the one in the Basilica of St Nicholas in Bari.

Palazzo Jatta stands in the heart of 19th-century Ruvo as a fine example of private architecture, standing alone in Piazza Bovio with a sober, harmonious façade worked in local stone. The building, erected on a large site known as "Palmenti del Purgatorio" that had previously belonged to a religious confraternity, was commissioned in 1840 from the Bitonto architect Luigi Castellucci (1798-1877) (Cristiano Chieppa: Luigi Castellucci e l'architettura dell'Ottocento in Terra di Bari, Schena, 2006.) by Giulia Viesti as the residence (with some rooms to be used as a museum) of her son Giovanni Jatta junior, nephew of the learned Ruvo magistrate of the Naples bar Giovanni Jatta senior.

Trained within the Neapolitan school, a pupil of Antonio Anito, Castellucci is the author of numerous neoclassical buildings and mansions in Terra di Bari; the building is currently the home of an important museum. The medieval historic centre and the long main street are lovely. Is that enough for a day trip?