Bitonto

Bitonto, a short drive inland from Bari, is nicknamed the "City of Olives" for the vast groves that surround it — the town is one of Italy's largest single producers of olive oil, a trade it has been known for since at least the 18th century. Its historic centre is built around the Concattedrale di Bitonto, a Romanesque cathedral built between 1175 and 1200 and modelled on Bari's Basilica of San Nicola, with a carved three-portal façade and a marble ambo dated to 1229 that is considered a masterwork of medieval Apulian sculpture. Bitonto's cattle market was famous enough in the Middle Ages to be mentioned by Boccaccio in the Decameron, and in 1734 the town gave its name to the Battle of Bitonto, in which Spanish forces defeated the Austrians and secured the Kingdom of Naples for the Bourbons — an event still commemorated in the city's civic history.