Finished and opened for worship in 1594 during the government of Alberto Acquaviva, the church was consecrated in 1623 in honor of Saint Eustace by the archbishop of Bari in Canosa, Ascanio Gesualdo.

Since the beginning it was called palatine, that is, belonging to the king (from the Latin palatium meaning "royal palace"), probably to preserve it from the aims of the archbishop of Bari.

[3] On 13 January 1859, after a stop in Acquaviva and on his way to Bari for the marriage of the Crown Prince Francesco with Maria Sophie of Bavaria, the penultimate king of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, attended the plain mass in the crypt of the cathedral.

A Renaissance rose window opens in the center of the frontal prospect, tending towards Mannerism, formed by sixteen columns arranged in the shape of rays and connected by small arches.

[5] The façade ends on the top with a broad triangular fifth,[clarification needed] in the center of which is a plaque commemorating the name of the feudal lord of Alberto Acquaviva.

[6] The crypt, probably built at the same time as the primitive church, is in the shape of a parallelogram and is covered by twenty-four cross vaults, supported by fourteen marble Ionic order columns in the center and small pillars protruding from the perimeter walls.

The front altar, all in double silver sheet, has an octagonal temple surmounted by a small dome and divided into three tiers decorated with various figures.

On the choir loft in the counterfaçade is the pipe organ, built in 1905 by Carlo Vegezzi Bossi [it]; the instrument, over time, has undergone major restoration and refurbishment, including that of 1968 by Leonardo Consoli, and that of 2001–2004 by the Continiello organ company, during which – among other things – the wooden case, the work of Acquaviva's Paolo Tritto, was removed and a new moveable console was provided.