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Cassano delle Murge is known as the "forest city" due to its proximity to the Mercadante Forest, an important regional forest area spanning over 1,300 hectares and popular for hiking and outdoor activities. The town boasts a medieval historic center centered around the ancient mother church of Santa Maria Assunta.

The Balsignano Monumental Complex is an ancient fortified medieval settlement. During your visit, you can visit this evocative archaeological and historical site, comprising a castle with double walls and two important churches: the Church of Santa Maria (with frescoes) and the Church of San Felice, the latter considered a masterpiece of Apulian Romanesque art with Byzantine influences. The complex dates back to the 10th-11th centuries and underwent various historical phases until its abandonment in the 16th century.

Built around the first half of the seventeenth century, the Church of San Rocco is one of the oldest places of worship in the historic centre of the city of Cassano delle Murge . Home to the Confraternity of San Rocco since 1867, it has a cuspidate façade. Its exterior is completed by a beautiful portal surmounted by a niche with an adjoining curvilinear frame, which enclosed, before the theft, a stone statue of San Rocco. In the upper part of the façade there is a cornice flanked by a heart-shaped perforated window and a bell gable. The interior of the Church of San Rocco has a single nave, with three arches on both the left and right sides, where medallions depicting the life of San Rocco are placed. The marble altar is noteworthy, on the upper part of which is placed the wooden statue of San Rocco covered by a red cloak. The decorations inside the church are wonderful, completed by a painting depicting flights of angels.

The Marchesale Miani Perotti Palace is a baroque building in the center of the town of Cassano Murge. Reachable on foot from every part of the town, it represents the symbol of local culture. Inside the palace, in fact, it is possible to visit an art gallery and a municipal library, as well as having the opportunity to attend musical events and conferences in some of the rooms.

Church of Santa Maria Assunta (pictured) History of Cassano delle Murge Hundreds of stone artifacts, paintings, various objects found in the caves around the town tell us about prehistoric settlements. The recent discovery of a menhir, dating back to 2500–2000 BC., confirms the antiquity of the human presence in these districts. The origins of Cassano seem to date back to the Roman Age, as confirmed by many archaeological finding, such as the recent discovery of a precious 5th century mosaic floor. The name Cassano appears for the first time in a document dating back to the beginning of the 14th century. The toponym derives from the Latin term “Cassius” to which the specification “delle Murge” was added in 1863, in reference to the geographical context in which the town stands. The history of the town reflects that of the entire regional territory which, after a long period of stagnation in the early Middle Ages, saw a recovery under the Normans and the Swabians.

Bitetto ist known for the presence of the remains of Blessed Giacomo , a lay friar who died in the odor of sanctity, whose body has remained intact over the centuries. The main monument of the town, the church of San Michele Arcangelo is one of the purest examples of Apulian Romanesque . The epigraph near the portal reveals that the facade was built in 1335 by Mastro Lillo da Barletta on commission from Bishop Bonocore, who wanted to rebuild the city temple on the site of an older cathedral. Bitetto had in fact been a diocesan seat since the 11th century . Oriented according to ancient custom with the presbytery to the east, the church has a severe façade divided into three parts by pilasters and equipped with a large archivolted rose window . Of the three portals, the central one is characterized by a rich sculptural apparatus: two stone lions, crouched on mighty corbels, support columns with capitals with vegetal motifs that support a lunette with bas-reliefs of Christ and the twelve Apostles. The external jambs instead present scenes from the New Testament. The interior, which was heavily plastered in the eighteenth century and was restored to its original Romanesque style in 1959 , is divided into three naves by triple-order wall partitions, where the double-arched arches are surmounted by false matronei and higher up by single-lancet windows. The transept has three apses according to the stylistic features of Apulian Romanesque. The fourteenth-century body is flanked on both sides by two eighteenth-century chapels, that of Purgatory (on the left) and that of the Blessed Sacrament (on the right). Outside, the bell tower, also dating back to the eighteenth century, rests on the Romanesque façade with a typical gabled structure.

Starting from the 3rd century BC, with the expansion of Rome, rustic villas and masses were built among the cultivated fields, while municipalities were formed along three main roads: from Venosa , through the Murge, to Taranto; from Canosa , through Ruvo , Bitonto , Ceglie , Norba , to Egnazia ; from Ofanto , along the Adriatic coast, to Brindisi and Otranto . At the time of Horace (68-8 BC), Bitetto did not yet exist. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the defeat of the Goths and Lombards , Puglia was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire . During this period, the region bore a heavy tax burden, but was enriched from a cultural point of view: the artistic heritage of the time, in fact, was deeply influenced by the new Byzantine elements. In those years Bitetto began to unify, forming a single village whose population was growing. It gathered around a monastery established by the Basilian monks in the San Marco district, between Bitetto and Bitritto . Monastery of this type were built at the behest of the Byzantines: in this way, in fact, they were able to exercise greater control over the territory and the population, exploiting the religious and political influence of the monks on the peasant families, enslaved by the gasindi to clear the land. The land of Bari , under Lombard pressure , became part of Langobardia Minor , then of the Duchy of Benevento . In this period Bitetto was included in the territory of the city of Bari, as evidenced by a very ancient document, dating back to 1021, which is found in the archive of San Nicola di Bari. During the 11th century Bitetto was elevated to the rank of bishop's seat , as in 1089 the papal bull Quia nostris temporibus of Pope Urban II cited it as a suffragan of Bari. Local notarial registers from the 14th and 15th centuries attest to the existence of a thriving Jewish community devoted to the trade of fabrics and real estate and the rental of animals. The 15th century saw the progressive worsening of the living conditions of the population of Bitetto: between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century the city was hit by the plague, killing, according to the records of the time, 3,249 inhabitants. The survivors abandoned their lodgings outside the city walls; the area outside the historic centre would not be repopulated until the early 19th century .

Small square and church.