Venosa

Venosa, today a calm and quiet town, was in the past an important and strategic point.
The roads leading to Rome from the Ionian Sea and from the inland areas passed exclusively through here.

Venosa, archeological site

It was a big city, lively and full of traffic, one of the most important
towns in Italy in the first century BC.
Founded by the Romans in 291 BC, it gave birth to Horace, perhaps the greatest of the Latin lyric poets.

I was a small child and on Mount Vulture in Puglia,
tired of playing and sleepy,
heedless I lay down and miraculous doves
covered me with leaves:
A prodigious feat,
thought all those who live on the high Acerenzia,
in the forests of Bantini,
and in the fertile fields of the lower Forento,
that I could sleep soundly,
secure from vipers' nests and bears,
simply covered
by a mount of sacred laurel leaves and myrtle,
a courageous child protected by the Gods.

Horace, "Odes", Book III, n. 4, "Come down from the skies and sing a beautiful song".

In the interesting archeological site of Venosa one can visit the remains of Roman roads and buildings, such as the baths of which a mosaic floor with marine motifs still survives.
Venosa also gave refuge to a flourishing Hebrew community and their presence is witnessed by the catacombs in Contrada Reale and in Contrada Maddalena.
Due due its strategic position, Venosa was an important town even during the Middle Ages. In the year 622 it was occupied by the Byzantines, and successively conquered at two different periods by the Saracens. It was liberated in 866 by the Emperor Ludwig and reconquered by the Longobards of Benevento and by the Byzantines in 976.

Vipers, symbol of the Normans

Then came the turn of the Normans, who like their predecessors left traces of their stay here in one of the most important and big buildings of Southern Italy, the church of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Unfinished church because the building was never completed. Robert Guiscard intended the new church as a pantheon
for his dynasty. But after his death, and due to the crisis of Norman Power, the works which had started in 1135 were, after only a few decades, forever interrupted.

Church of the Holy Trinity

If the project had been completed, the new grand basilica would have included the old building, and the new one would have measured 125 metres in length and 48 in width and would have covered an area of three thousand square metres. To construct the new edifice material was brought from the Roman amphitheatre and from the sepulchral monuments.
The site evokes an eery atmosphere especially the work left half done. The impression one gets
is that of walking through a building yard where the work could be taken up and completed
any minute, instead of walking among old ruins. This is perhaps what makes the "unfinished church" so fascinating.
From the floor of green grass, six powerful columns rise up towards the vault of the sky - a light roof for the dream of Robert Guiscard, the audacious adventurer who wanted to be king.

The unfinished church