Putignano - Tourism, history, food and wine, art and culture.

The external façade is in Baroque style and this important architectural expression is not present in any of the other monuments in Putignano. The front stands majestically and imposing on the small square which takes its name from the church itself.

 

The entire front elevation of the church of Santa Maria la Greca, curvilinear, divided into three vertical compartments by a pair of pilasters and interspersed with a noble horizontal cornice that divides from two horizontal orders.

 

The portal placed in the lower order is framed by a quick shaped porch, supported by Corinthian columns that rest on high plinths and at the top of the central part there is an empty aedicule in which it was certainly the intention of the designer to place some sacred image . On the two sides we find other secondary access doors on which oval windows are highlighted.

 

In the second order at the top there is a large shaped window, which acts as an internal light point, above which the pediment of the facade rises, decorated with cornices and elegant scrolls.

The Romanesque goldsmith's art in all its splendor is artistically expressed in the "head" reliquary of Saint Stephen kept in the church of Santa Maria la Greca. Originally coming from the Benedictine abbey of Santo Stefano in the Monopoli area, and datable between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. It is a chiseled silver artifact that reproduces the head and face of a crusader.

 

The communicative intensity in the representation of the face is made even more solid by the excellent overall state of conservation and is greatly enhanced by the shiny gilding on the hair, eyebrows, eye contour and ears. Attention to the coherence of the image is given by a rigorous and punctual distribution of the decorative parts, it should be observed, in fact, how the geometric succession of the curls of the hair is balanced in the lower part by the cluster motif of the inflorescences present on the collar.

 

Based on a comparison with a reliquary per head referring to the thirteenth century and kept at the Abbey of Melk, it has been hypothesized a probable origin from the Danube area, between Austria and Hungary.

 

The above reliquary contains within it a fragment of the skull of Santo Stefano Protomartire. The relic of the saint was kept by the Benedictine monks in the castle of Santo Stefano in Monopoli which took this name for this very reason. The castle was built by Goffredo Count of Conversano in 1086 and soon became the seat of the Benedictine order who thus founded the monastery, abbey.

 

It is assumed that the relic arrived in Italy following the first crusade, when in the year 1099 it was possible to conquer Jerusalem and take control of the Holy Sepulcher. Around the end of 1200 the Knights of Malta moved to this Abbey, they fortified it in order to control naval traffic to the Holy Land. At that time, the Abbey was home not only to the reliquary of Saint Stephen but also to the Byzantine icon of the Madonna della Madia.

 

The reliquary together with the Byzantine icon of the Madonna della Madia were transferred on December 26th 1394 to Putignano and placed in the original church of Santa Maria la Greca, to defend them from the continuous Turkish raids and pirate attacks, during the reign of Ladislao. (1377-1414). The people and peasants, intent on planting vines (cuttings) in the fields, joined the procession of religious translators along the path on foot.

 

This episode is at the origin of the feast of the "offshoots", still handed down on December 26 of each year, the day on which the Putignano Carnival begins.

Marvelous to see and visit the majolica floor from mid-1751 that adorns the apse of the altar in the upper chapel of the church of Santa Maria la Greca in Putignano.

Bright colors typical of majolica that draw imposing frames of intense green foliage with the presence of flowers and quince. There are baskets full of colorful fruit, representations of typical 1700s vases with hanging flowers and buds, combined with an enchanting and colorful bird of paradise. The artistic representation of the Neapolitan school is presented with bright colors, sinuous brushstrokes of cobalt blue, copper green, blue, yellow and blue.

At the center of the entire walkable surface, in a blue cartouche decorated on the top with a crown of yellow-ocher flowers and green leaves, there is the date MDCCLI, 1751.

The overall size of the pavement is approximately eight by four meters deep, and the overall project consists of square tiles of approximately 11 cm per side.

Fortunately, the scarce trampling of the flooring given the scarce use of the altar, as it is placed high up on an upper level immediately above the main altar, reachable only through two long stairs placed on the sides, has preserved the state of conservation of the same.

The one visible in the church of Santa Maria La Greca is the only ancient majolica floor present in the ancient village, and with good reason it can be considered that it is the second in Puglia, in this regard it is worth mentioning that of the church of San Giacomo in Piazza of Odegitria in Bari

A tutela, valorizzazione e rivalutazione di tali ricchezze artistiche possiamo confermare che sono pochissimi i pavimenti in maiolica sopravvissuti all'usura del tempo e del calpestio in tutta l'Italia Meridionale.