Troia Cathedral

Built in the first quarter of the 12th century, it is reckoned a masterpiece of Apulian Romanesque architecture[1] and is particularly noted for the rose window and the bronze doors of the west front.

[2] The following Latin inscription is located on a wall of the Chapel of the Patron Saints: Felix antistes dom(i)nus Guillelmus secundus fecit hanc aede(m) D(e)o ac beatae Mariae vobisq(ue) fidelibus felices troiani[3] A Byzantine church formerly stood on the site, apparently constructed largely from the remains of Roman buildings.

[4] Excavations in the 1950s were at one time believed to have established that the present transept was originally the nave of the previous church building, but this is now contested.

[5] It is however certain that the cores of the two western pillars of the crossing date from the very first building phase, and possibly served the same purpose in the original church.

Like the external parts of the nave, which also follow this basic structure, they are very finely worked in a variety of building stones.

Along the lower edge of the relief is the Latin inscription Istius ecclesiae per portam materialis introitus nobis tribuatur spiritualis ("Through the door of this material church may there be granted to us the entry to the spiritual").

[8] The upper part of the west front, up as far as the top of the rose window, dates from the period up to about 1180, while the point of the gable and its outermost surfaces are from the alterations at the beginning of the 13th century.

[9] It consists of eleven slender columns assembled in a wheel, the spaces between them filled with decorative carved stone grilles (transenne), a very rare form of the rose window.

Also remarkable are the carvings of the inner of the two arches overhanging the window, consisting of a multiplicity of animals and human forms, among them a boy relieving himself.

The famous doors of the main portal[1] were made by one of the most celebrated bronze-casters of the 12th century, Oderisio of Benevento; according to the inscription, they were finished in 1119.

The door knockers in the mouths of lions and the small figures of winged dragons, representing fear and desire[10] are the originals, little masterpieces of medieval sculpture.

They depict, from left to right: the artist, Oderisio; Christ in Judgment; Count Berard of Sangro; and Bishop William II.

The row below contains more door knockers in the mouths of lions, beneath which follow a further eight panels with a long inscription, recording that the people of Troia, in order to recover their freedom after the death of Duke William, destroyed the castle and fortified the town with a wall and a ditch, in the time of Bishop William, who describes himself as the guardian of justice and the liberator of his country.

[7] The church is built on a Latin cross plan and contains a central nave, the height of which is perhaps the most striking feature of the interior, and two side-aisles separated by two round-arched arcades of 6 marble columns each.

At the front, supported on a single small column, is a lectern on the back of a Staufer eagle, which is striking at a hare.