[4] Around 1510 the church was enlarged, and at that time the main door was located between the present niches of St. Lawrence and St. Joseph and stretched as far as the altar of St. Anne, where, surrounded by a gate, the wall on which the painting stood was preserved.

[2] It was not until 1552 that Domenico di Brindisi and Stefano Salinaro were commissioned to build a chapel to house the Marian icon, adorned with various sculptures and enclosed by an iron gate.

The entire population participated in the expenses for its reconstruction,[2] from the prince, who offered more than half of the sum needed,[6] to the University (the officials gave up their salaries),[6] the Collegiate Chapter,[6] and the people with their alms.

[6] To solve the problems concerning the construction of the church, a special commission was appointed,[6] which supervised the work that lasted from 1743 to 1759,[6] and which, with the help of the architect Mauro Manieri and Prince Michele Imperiali, chose, among all those presented, a project that came from Rome.

[6] The building site was directed for a year by Mauro Manieri and, after his death, by Friar Benedetto of the Pious Schools and Giuseppe di Lauro of Manduria.

[7] As a symbolic gesture, a box of lead was inserted into the brick containing a coin depicting Benedict XII, a medal of Our Lady of the Fountain and a jar of oil.

In 1792, following a meeting between the then bishop of Oria, the mayor and deputies of the Chapter, the University decided to provide only for material needs, giving up spiritual problems.

[8] The interior is accessed through three doors: the two side ones, surmounted by mixtilinear tympanums,[14] have a simple line, hemmed by roundels, to which they are joined with a curled volute.

[14] In the lunette, carved from a broken tympanum, on the central part of which rests a shield depicting the civic coat of arms, the image of Our Lady of the Fountain is inserted in a tangle of decorative elements.

[14] Ending the lower order is an empty entablature, which concludes with a projecting cornice, adorned with dentils, which with its Greek motif accentuates the horizontal partitions without sacrificing the vertical ones.

[14] On a base, which symmetrically resumes the lower order, the upper one is set, divided into three fields by the usual pilasters adorned with composite capitals reminiscent of Borromini.

[17] Four large pillars, consisting of paired pilasters, lighten the mass, delimit the side chapels of the nave and support arches and spandrels that set the dome.

They have a rectangular floor plan with the altar set away from the wall, on which, in the chapel of the Fountain, the ancient icon of the Virgin and Child has been placed.

The cabinet is decorated on the cymatium by five ovalets painted in 1796[10] by the painter Forleo-Brayda, depicting the Baptism of Christ, the Beheading of St. James the Greater, the Apostle Peter freed from prison, the Heart of Jesus and the Finding of Mary Most Holy of the Fountain.

[10] The interior decoration of the new church was carried out using stucco, cartouches unrolled by angels, curled volutes, later weighted down by coloring and gilding for a distorted sense of Baroque style.

[24] More modest is the contribution of the pictorial decoration, entrusted to Domenico Carella, Ludovico Delli Guanti, artists of Solimenesque culture and the painter Francesca Forleo-Brayda.

On the main door in the counter-façade is The Fall of Lightning, a canvas by Ludovico Delli Guanti, which commemorates the event of March 28, 1779, believed to be miraculous because during a dispute, which erupted into heavy insults, that broke out inside the church during an administrative meeting, lightning killed Angelo Candita, one of those who had most used offensive and insulting tones in the holy place.

[26] Behind the chancel, in a closed cabinet is a papier-mâché statue of Our Lady of Pompeii, not visible throughout the year, but displayed from April 29 to May 8 on the occasion of the Novena in her honor and the Feast.

The pulpit is made entirely of richly inlaid wood and leaning against the pillar; behind it is the cabinet with the statue of the Immaculate Conception, the work of Armando Morrone.