Ruvo di Puglia - Concattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

The area was colonized between the 8th and 5th centuries BC by the Greeks. Around the 4th century BC the village conducted commercial exchanges with most of the Italic populations and minted its own currency. Ruvo established itself as a thriving polis of Magna Graecia.

After the end of the Hellenistic age in Apulia, the town played a role for the Roman Republic, first being assigned Roman citizenship, then the title of municipium and finally becoming the station of the Via Traiana.

In the 5th century, Ruvo disappeared under the blows of the invasions of the Goths which reduced the city to a pile of rubble. Ruvo, refounded on the slopes of the original hill, was first conquered by the Lombards and then fell prey to the Saracens. It was the people who decided then to equip themselves with a wall with towers. In the 11th century, Ruvo entered the county of Conversano and suffered violence due to internal struggles for power, which conflicts led to the second destruction of the town. However, it was under Frederick II that Ruvo finally recognized cultural and economic growth, a period marked by the construction of the Romanesque-Gothic cathedral.

Ruvo Cathedral was the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Ruvo, it is now a co-cathedral in the Diocese of Molfetta-Ruvo-Giovinazzo-Terlizzi. The building was built between the 12th and 13th centuries, with several later alterations.

The current exterior is the result of early 20th-century restoration works which removed all the Baroque additions. The church has a sloped façade with three portals. The central one, flanked by two columns standing on lions and surmounted by griffins, has internal reliefs which were once part of an earlier construction. The smaller ones, at the sides, have a simpler shape, with two semi-columns supporting ogival arches; they also belonged to previous buildings.

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