Andria Cathedral ( it, Duomo di Andria, ''Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta'') is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

Andria Andria (; Barese: ) is a city and ''comune'' in Apulia ( southern Italy). It is an agricultural and service center, producing wine, olives and almonds. It is the fourth-largest municipality in the Apulia region (behind Bari, Taranto, and Fogg ...

Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...

, Italy, which up to 2009 was in the

Province of Bari The Province of Bari ( it, provincia di Bari, nap, pruvincia 'e Bari, nap, label= Barese, provinge de Bare) was a province in the region of Apulia, Italy. Its capital was the city of Bari. It has an area of , and a total population of 1,594,10 ...

but from then onwards part of the newly formed

Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani The Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani is a province of Italy in the Apulia region. The establishment of the province took effect in June 2009, and Andria was appointed as its seat of government on 21 May 2010. It was created from 10 municipalitie ...

. It is dedicated to the

Assumption of the Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...

and is the seat of the

Bishop of Andria The Italian Catholic diocese of Andria is in Apulia, seated at Andria Cathedral which is built over a church dedicated to St. Peter, about ten miles southwest of Trani. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bari-Bitonto. The diocese has 39 pa ...

Overview

The present cathedral was built by the Norman

Geoffrey of Hauteville Geoffrey of Hauteville (also ''Gottfried'', ''Godfrey'', ''Godefroi'', ''Goffredo'', or ''Gaufrido''; about 1020-1071) was a Norman military leader, the second youngest son of Tancred of Hauteville by his first wife Muriella. He joined his brothers ...

, lord of Andria, on top of an earlier small church of the 7th-8th century, which forms the present

crypt A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...

. It received further extensive refurbishment and reconstruction in the mid-14th century in the Late Gothic style, and again later in the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style. The cathedral was severely damaged by a fire in 1916 and was again restored in 1965. The frequent rebuildings have given what is basically a Norman church a predominantly Late Gothic appearance. The crypt, dedicated to the Holy Saviour (''San Salvatore'') - unlike the main cathedral, which is dedicated to the Assumption - contains the tombs of two of the wives of

Emperor Frederick II Frederick II (German: ''Friedrich''; Italian: ''Federico''; Latin: ''Federicus''; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusa ...

, Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem (Yolande) and

Isabella of England Isabella of England (1214 – 1 December 1241) was an English princess of the House of Plantagenet. She became Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Sicily, Italy and Germany from 1235 until her death as the third wife of Emperor Frederick II. Life B ...

.A brief account of the exhumation and examination of the coffins of the two empresses b
Professor Fornaciari
in 1993, when the unexpected remains of several additional bodies were discovered, i

( The cathedral owns a gold

reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including ''wikt:phylactery, phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it i ...

of special importance, and two major 19th-century paintings by Michele de Napoli.

Notes

Sources and external links

Catholic Encyclopedia: Diocese of Andria

Apulia Tourist Board official website: brief description of cathedral and crypt
Roman Catholic cathedrals in Italy Cathedrals in Apulia Churches in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani

Cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

Gothic architecture in Apulia {{italy-RC-cathedral-stub