Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo

Foggia Cathedral blends a Romanesque survival with Baroque rebuilding after the earthquake of 1731. Within it, the city venerates the Iconavetere, also called the Madonna dei Sette Veli, whose annual feast on 22 March commemorates a tradition born in the earthquake's aftermath.

Why it matters

The church carries the double story of Foggia: a medieval collegiate church in the Romanesque manner of Norman Puglia, later made a cathedral when the Diocese of Foggia was created in 1855, and a building damaged in the earthquake of 20 March 1731. Its full title is Basilica Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo e San Giovanni Battista. Above all, the cathedral is the home of the Iconavetere, the painted image of the Virgin venerated as patroness of Foggia.

What to notice

The façade combines a sober medieval lower register, with a decorated portal in the Romanesque-Gothic manner, and smoother Baroque surfaces from the eighteenth-century rebuilding. Inside, the broad nave and side altars reflect the later Baroque character. The regional tourism portal highlights the Assunta at the high altar, along with frescoes and reliquary treasures.

Context and history

Tradition holds that the Iconavetere was found at the site in the eleventh century. The Romanesque church of Santa Maria was raised in the later twelfth century to serve the growing town. The earthquake of 20 March 1731 seriously damaged the cathedral and destroyed much of Foggia. According to devotional tradition, the sacred image was carried to safety with the consecrated hosts, and an apparition on 22 March gave rise to the Madonna dei Sette Veli devotion and the annual feast. The cathedral was rebuilt in the Baroque manner and later became the centre of the Diocese of Foggia, erected in 1855, elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese in 1979 and united with Bovino in 1986.