Putignano - Puglia - Italy - Church of San Pietro Apostolo

The sacristy

The Sacristy is a seventeenth-century or early eighteenth-century construction, divided into four bays, alternating in size (two large, square, and two smaller, rectangular) and covered by ribbed and barrel vaults, lunette.

All around a continuous theory of built-in wooden cabinets, now empty, testifying to the large number of priests once officiating, who used them. On the walls you can admire: a wooden Crucifix from the Baroque period; a large canvas «The Exaltation of the Cross», coming from the overlying Cappellone, blackened and barely legible, and two portraits of Bishops. The largest reproduces the likeness of Mons. Giuseppe Maria Mucedola, bishop of Conversano, 1849-1865, Venetian by birth and remembered as an ardent patriot and supporter of the unity of Italy; the smallest, those of Monsignor Giovanni Luigi Spilotros, Putignanese, 1806-1877, Carmelite and bishop of Tricarico. Who, held in great esteem in the Vatican for his great talents and for his profound culture in the field of theology, of which he was a professor at the Roman University, held the position of Domestic Prelate of Pius IX and Assistant to the Throne Pontifical, and, as a Consultor, participated in Vatican Council I.

A small canvas that is very interesting for its historical-celebratory content is still admired. It is the sketch of the canvas (m. 6x4) depicting «The promulgation of the Code of Canon Law» by the Putignanese painter Cesare Antonelli (1857-1940), commissioned from him by Pope Benedict XV and kept in the Ducal room in the Vatican. Cardinal Gasparri is seen in the moment in which he delivers the first copy of the new Code to the Pope, in the presence of the Pontifical Court and the members of the Commission for Codification. This work was completed in 1920

the choir behind the altar

Behind the Presbytery is the Choir, a large rectangular room with a cross vault in the central part and a barrel vault with lunettes on the sides.

Built in the sixteenth century and enlarged for the first time at the beginning of the seventeenth century with the occupation of public land, in 1703 it received the current structure, as a still legible plaque recalls:

Angustis extructa piis proventibus ark. Hanc magis angustam redidit auta domum

It is possible to admire, leaning against three walls, the double-row wooden choir, dating back to 1727.

It is a work of exquisite workmanship, carved, painted and inlaid, consisting of stalls placed side by side and decorated with silhouettes of stylized flowers, rendered with wooden pieces of different colors in the squares of the backs, and with herms of finely carved angels, placed on the pillars. dividers. Other heads of putti, rhythmically arranged on the frieze above with well-profiled frames, number, so to speak, the stalls themselves with armrests ending in scrolls.

In the center of the hall there is a characteristic lectern dated 1718, as revealed by the appropriate inscription. It consists of a candlestick stem, rounded in the central part and grooved with a groove and torus and with an elegantly carved triple body base.

The Presbytery

The Presbytery was structurally completed around 1666 "communi aere", with funds of public money, that is, at the time of the mayor Trailo "Patriae Sindicus atque Pater", as stated on the plaque with the University coat of arms, placed at the top , along the staircase on the right that leads to the Cappellone or Oratory.

It is an architectural body with an almost cubic shape that is grafted onto the unitary nave intended in all its width, to open, in turn, by means of two superimposed arches, to the new spatiality of the Choir and of the Chapel of the SS. Crucifix.

In the fervor of the renovation, the Baroque effect was accentuated with the creation on the walls of frames and bas-reliefs with the application of distinctly decorative and luminous stuccoes. Church on the side walls, embroideries and picturesque angelic figures intertwine, astride a lion, which guards the arch itself; and again in the decorative vortex of the open cartouche with wavy edges that bind to the archivolt, the rear facade of the presbytery concludes at the top. This, the first true advanced phase, is enclosed by an artistic balustrade of precious polychrome marbles inlaid with the refined shaping of the wavy frame with relative wrought iron gate, graceful by a game of scrolls, which unfold and join elegantly, and from two massive balustrades arranged in a dynamically ascending line, which, on both sides, delimiting the two stairs, offer a comfortable view on the occasion of the once very crowded sacred functions.

The main altar is imposing with a polychrome marble structure, enriched by inlays, elegant carvings and refined sculptural elements. It is embellished by the variegated and imaginative combination of blue inlays streaked with white, red and antique yellow. To make the work even more important are the sculptural elements, consisting of the heads of winged cherubs, as well as the lively representation of a white dove on the facade of the tabernacle.

The frontal, surmounted by a finely rendered rolled drape, with graceful angels in the round, facing inwards, is clearly evident in the act of supporting the central medallion, preciously framed by an inscribed cross.

The work dates back to 1751 and is, as reported by Casulli, by the excellent Neapolitan master marble worker Giovanni Cimafonte, probably author of the marble balustrade, perspective counterpoint to the altar itself.

The altar, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was consecrated in 1773 with the intervention of the Bishop of Conversano, Msgr. Fabio Palumbo. In 1968, by the will of the archpriest Don Pierino Giotta, the altar was enriched with an artistic silver ciborium, the result of the workshop of the Neapolitan goldsmith Catella. It is a beautiful work finely embossed in the contours adhering to the line of the marble shape, adorned with branches with clusters and ears of wheat and a pelican, on the door, represented with the intent to feed the hungry little ones of his heart, symbolically depicting the SS. Eucharist

On the terminals of the altar rest two statues 1.30 meters high, depicting Saint John the Baptist and Saint Stephen protomartyr, one protector and the other patron of Putignano. Del Balì Francone, the second of the University, are of beautiful and artistically valid workmanship and excellently summarize the stylistic canons of the Neapolitan school of the '700.

At the rear of the altar there is the first arch that leads into the choir, interspersed with a wooden partition, lacquered and painted with elegant naturalistic elements, and a mosaic stained glass window with the representation of the "Virgin of Sorrows", of the "Baptism of Jesus ", And of the« Delivery of the keys to St. Peter ». The drawing is the work of fellow citizen Francesco Dalena (1930) and follows, for the lateral representations, famous models of Renaissance painting (Verrocchio -Perugino).

The stairs leading to the sacred area of the Presbytery widen, unfold in a semicircle perspective and were built together with the first nucleus of the Cappellone delI Santissimo Crocifisso in the early 1600s by a group of local artisans at the end of the 19th century, thanks to the commitment of archpriest Giovanni Mongelli

The decorated vault

Thanks to the desire to transform and embellish the sacred environment implemented in the eighteenth century, even the ceiling could not escape these changes, in fact the old trusses, certainly dating back to the primitive structure, were masked by a wooden false ceiling with a simple plank, tied to the chains of the trusses themselves, thus eluding the theme of the masonry vault which twice, in 1699 and in 1725, had been, without confirmation, re-proposed by the then University.
Thus we return to the ancient wooden roofing system, probably not due to a lack of substantial funds but for static reasons and, consequently, due to the great technical difficulties involved in carrying out the project.