Attractions and Places To See around Irsina - Top 20

The Ducal Church of Santa Maria del Suffragio, known as the Church of Purgatory , was a place of worship dating back to the mid- 17th century located in the city of Gravina in Puglia at the entrance to the Cathedral Square for those arriving from Porta San Michele. The Church is called ducal because its construction, begun in 1649, took place thanks to the generosity and religiosity of the Dukes of Gravina, Ferdinando III Orsini and his wife Giovanna Francipane della Tolfa, parents of Pope Benedict XIII. It was dedicated to Santa Maria del Suffragio for the celebration of masses in suffrage for the souls in Purgatory . The Church of Purgatory is a pearl of religious architecture, it belongs to a specific category of Catholic places of worship, that of the Monti del Suffragio, which can be found in many other cities in Puglia . These are Churches dedicated to the cult of the dead: prayers and Holy Masses are aimed at the salvation of the souls of the deceased, assigning to the Monte del Suffragio a mediating function between the devotion of the living faithful and the conquest of the Celestial Kingdom by those who have passed on to a better life. On the facade of the Church you can read two inscriptions that clearly refer to the memento mori : “Quod tu es ego fui” I was what you are, “Tu eris quod ego sum” You will be what I am.

Gravina in Puglia is the charming town where the Alta Murgia park is located. The town and the surrounding area are characterized by the famous ravines: deep canyons dug into the rock by water over time. Here, you can also admire the Aqueduct bridge that connects the two banks of the Gravina stream.

Grottole presents itself as a village divided into two distinct parts: the ancient part, full of cobbled streets and historic buildings that narrate the history of the community, and the modern part, more functional and contemporary. While the old Grottole enchants with its timeless charm and its authenticity rooted in history, the new Grottole offers a vision of the growth and evolution of the city. The contrast between the two parts adds a unique element to the experience of visiting Grottole, highlighting the diversity and coexistence of past and present.

In Piazza Notar Domenico, built in the mid-seventeenth century to be the funeral chapel of the Orsini family

Gravina di Puglia is home to the Alta Murgia National Park and is famous for the ravine under the town, a labyrinth of tunnels, cellars, cisterns and rock churches that bear witness to its millenary history. The Aqueduct Bridge, probably built in the 17th century, is a majestic arched structure that crosses the ravine and allowed pilgrims to reach the little church of the Madonna della Stella.

Village located between the Basento and Bradano rivers included, in part, in the San Giuliano regional reserve. The city is famous for a clay working.

The center of Gravina in Puglia has a hidden face. Under the inhabited area, an underground world made up of tunnels, cellars, rock churches, granaries, seventeenth-century ovens is preserved in excellent condition. The stairways leading to the oldest neighborhoods start from Piazza Benedetto XIII, between medieval houses and rock churches, the most important of which is the one dedicated to the patron saint, San Michele. The exploration of the cave civilization of Gravina continues in the Pomarici Santomasi Museum, which houses important finds such as the frescoes in the rock crypt of San Vito Vecchio

Grottole has remote origins so as to be one of the oldest centers in the region. The finds of prehistoric, Greek and Roman settlements are a precise testimony in this sense. The toponym could derive from the Greek Kruptai, hidden places, and from the Latin cryptulae or small caves, rooms used for working clay, an art for which Grottole has remained famous over the centuries. In the Magna Graecia period, Grottole was part of the VII Metapontine region, colonized by the Greeks starting from the VIII century BC. It was fortified by the Longobards, from whom it managed to escape around the year 1000. In 1061, in the Norman era, the feud of Grottole passed under the dominion of Guglielmo Braccio di Ferro, and subsequently passed to Roberto il Guiscardo and then to the counts Loffredo di Matera. Over the centuries the fiefdom of Grottole was disputed by various lordships. Carlo I D'Angiò assigned it to Ruggero di Lauro, count of Tricarico, who had supported the Angevin conquest, and from these it passed to the Monteforte and Orsini Del Balzo families. At the beginning of the sixteenth century it was a possession of the Gaetani Dell'Aquila d'Aragona family. In 1534 it passed under the dominion of the Marquises Sanchez De Luna of Aragon, the treasurers of the Kingdom of Naples, while in the following century the Caracciolos and Spinellis of San Giorgio followed one another, until 1738 when it passed to the Sanseverinos of Bisignano by marriage. After 1806, with the subversive law of feudalism, the assets were divided between the descendants of the Sanseverinos and D. Rosa Miracco, a natural daughter of Luigi Sanseverino 13th Prince of Bisignano [8], who had always been closely linked to the feud of Grottole. Only in 1874 did Grottole get rid of the last feudatory Prince Sanseverino. The municipal territory (the ancient universitas as the municipalities were once called) was divided into districts.