BITONTO, Diocese of. - In the province of Bari. Inhabited by a Greek colony, of which traces remain in household goods and coins with the inscription BYTONTINON, it was later conquered by the Romans and became a municipium, but it declined because of the inva-
barbarian invasions. There is no reliable information about the erection of the diocese of B. The bishop attributed to the mid-8th century is very uncertain. Only toward the end of the 11th century can the bishop Arnulf (1087) be recalled. Subsequently the bishops Bisanzio (1113), Giovanni (1179) and two anonymous ones are known: to the first, around 1200, Innocent III wrote; the second was transferred to Mileto by Innocent IV in 1252. Then a regular list is established up to 1818, when Pius VII united aeque principaliter B. to Ruvo, a suffragan of Bari. In the 16th century its administrators included some cardinals such as Giambattista and Gianfrancesco Orsini, Giulio de' Medici and twice Alessandro Farnese.
B. has preserved its episcopal curia with a minor seminary; it has over 36,000 inhabitants with 15 parishes, 52 diocesan priests and 6 regulars. The abbeys of S. Leone degli Olivetani and the two female ones of S. Pietro Nuovo delle Olivetane and of the Benedictines alle Vergini are remembered.
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SACRED ART
The city's principal monument is the Cathedral (St. Valentine), begun in the 12th century on the very site where a Benedictine church dedicated to the Assumption stood, and brought to completion in the course of the 13th century. In its general layout the great church repeats the model of St. Nicholas of Bari.
On the outside the facade is divided into three zones by two pilasters flanking the central body; this has a splendid portal with richly adorned arches and an architrave with reliefs and two griffins on small columns supported by lions. Above is a pair of double-light windows and then the rose window, likewise rich in relief decoration. The side has six arcades on piers and then a loggia or matroneum composed of six hexaphoras with thirty small columns. Also very rich in decoration is the end wall of the right transept with the double order of two double-light windows and a large rose window. Very beautiful too is the apse section with a richly carved window, flanked by two bell towers restored several times over the centuries. The interior, imposing and harmonious, is divided into three naves by 8 columns and 4 piers. The plan scheme is an Egyptian cross transformed into a rectangle by reason of the side chapels that project as far as the width of the transept. Very beautiful are the capitals of the columns on which solemn round arches rest. Above are six large double-light windows and four single-light windows per side. The main nave and the transept have a trussed roof, while the side naves have vaulted coverings, but of the 18th century. In the interior of the Cathedral several Apulian artists of the Romanesque age have left notable testimonies of their activity. First among them that Nicola "magister et sacerdos" who, against the right pier near the presbytery, carved in 1220 the most beautiful ambo, and then that Bonifacio who in 1240 carved the pulpit where the relief is invigorated by inlays of colored glass, and finally that Gualtiero da Foggia who a few years later carved the ciborium, of which only a few graceful small columns and a cornice remain, today the balustrade of the 17th-century tomb of Cardinal Fabrizio Carafa.
Interesting is the crypt, as vast as the transverse nave and divided into four naves by 30 beautiful columns. In the treasury are preserved some reliquaries and precious sacred furnishings. Adjacent to the Cathedral are the seminary and the episcopal palace, where fragments of Romanesque sculpture are collected. The church of St. Francis, built in the last years of the 13th century, preserves its original facade with the ogival portal and above it a triple-light window with the central arch higher than the side ones. The church of St. Dominic, on the other hand, is 15th-century. Of some interest for the history of architecture are also the small church of St. Valentine, probably founded in the 12th century, and the abbey of St. Leo. This is a construction that boasts very remote origins (3rd century). Until the 14th century the Benedictines held it, then the Olivetans and then the Franciscans. Its oldest parts date back to the 13th and 14th centuries. It has windows and an ogival triumphal arch and, in the apse, an interesting series of 14th-century frescoes. The bell tower, on the other hand, is 13th-century, while the cloister was built in the first twenty-five years of the 16th century.
Among the church buildings of the Baroque age it is worth recalling, besides the church of St. Gaetano and that of the Crucifix, also the church of St. Francis of Paola, rebuilt in the 18th century with its tall bell tower.
In B. one frequently encounters interesting medieval and Renaissance civil buildings. Among the latter are to be remembered the Grottola small palace, with a rusticated ground floor and then a loggia with two arcades; the Sylos Labini palace with the beautiful 15th-century portal, and the Sylos Calò palace.