04 – AEDICCLE FOR DEVOTION

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Via Don Pietro Giannuzzi

Small stone votive shrine with wooden window frames, probably original with date and benefactor. It certainly contained a different image from those present today, a symbol of the local faith.

In via Don Pietro Giannuzzi (the old Purgatorio street), next door
at number 18 there is a newsstand with the following inscription: “A devotion to Leonardo Melchionna AD 1849”. This could be the baker who in 1819 was domiciled in the immediate vico Gabella n° 71, and who Borro of Statistica (1819) declares to be 25 years old, and to be married to Margherita Marcelli. Melchionna probably had to be the baker of the ancient Forno di Mancino, located right in Vico Gabella, but of which he was not the owner. Almost certainly Leonardo Melchionna would have bought the house with the newsstand precisely to be very close to the oven where he worked. After passing the 1849 aedicule, the road takes us to the houses of the Local or Baronial Court, recognizable by the particular and large mullioned window, which overlooks the square that forms a very short distance away. Right there was the office of the governor, who was appointed by the Count of Conversano, the highest representative of the local temporal power, being Castellana a fief of the Acquaviva d'Aragona.

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