The rock-hewn Church of St. Michele is a beautiful example of Saint Michael’s worship in southern Italy. Sited in the ancient district of Fondovito, it overlooks the ravines from the highest point of the city. The building has a rectangular floorplan with five aisles, sustained by 14 pillars completely excavated in the rocks. All the walls are embellished by frescoes who go back to various centuries, while, on the altars, XVII-XVIII-century statues of three archangels made with rock and chalk and a middle age arcosolium stand. In the adjoining cave there are human bones and skulls, which could either be the bones of martyrs of the Saracen attack in 999 or, most likely, the bones of corpses reburied during the 17th centuries.
The Cathedral of Gravina in Puglia is an extraordinary Basilique dedicated to St. Maria Assunta, built at the end of the 11th century and later expanded by Normans. The building has 3 aisles divided by columns embellished with different kinds of capitals. Polychromatic marble altars, 1538 statue of S. Michael Arcangel, made with a typical rock of Gravina called mazzaro, a baptismal font, a walnut wood-choir dated 500 A.D., a wooden crucifix dated 16th century and an organ with 2135 pipes all stand out. Just looking up, the beautiful sealing will enchant you with its golden details and 5 paintings.
In the middle of the old city, the Church of Santa Maria del Suffragio, known as Chiesa del Purgatorio, was built as a funeral chapel by the Orsini family between 1649 and 1654, with the help of the Dukes of Gravina, parents of Pope Benedict XIII. It was dedicated to the suffrage of the souls in Purgatory. The entry portal has a gable with two skeletons carved in stone