This is a famous gathering of historical parades and is held in Gravina every year in September. Along with the main event (the parade), in the city center there will be several stalls selling souvenirs. If you are into Middle Age history, this is an event you cannot miss!
Cattedrale Santa Maria Assunta
The facade, tripartite by two pilasters, is made up of three portals, of which the central one is larger but unfinished, and a rose window, a remnant of the ancient Romanesque church, in the center of which is a bas-relief of the Assumption. The two side portals are embellished with high reliefs and two small statues depicting Christ; the left portal is dated 1495. The central portal is a recent work: it is made up of 24 panels that tell evangelical episodes. The bell tower was completed in 1698 by Cardinal Vincenzo Maria Orsini with the construction of the "cipollone"(Big Onion) on its top.
Protruding from the left aisle and overhanging the ravine is the so-called big chapel, built in the first half of the 17th century, with two floors. The interior of the church has three naves divided by columns with bare capitals. The ceiling is in carved and gilded wood, in Baroque style: four large canvases were applied to it in the seventeenth century. There are several side chapels, including the one dedicated to the Archangel Michael, patron saint of the city; these chapels are embellished with polychrome marble altars, mostly from the 1700s, and the work of the Neapolitan Francesco Cimafonte. In the presbytery there is an important wooden choir from 1561 and a large organ.
The church has a single nave and preserves the typical 17th-century grated women's gallery. After a century there was the need to expand the church by lengthening it on the side of the monastery and rebuilding the two side altars, one dedicated to the Madonna del Rosario and the other to San Domenico di Guzman. In the first years of the 19th century the flooring was redone with majolica tiles and the side altars were covered in marble.
On the high altar there is a painting of the Assumption of Mary by Carlo Rosa and on the entrance door there is a grated choir loft and an organ dating back to the 18th century. The church has a two-storey facade marked by pilasters and a crowning with fittings, two large oval oculi and a tribolated window. In the monastery there were a considerable amount of paintings but a conspicuous part passed into state property after the suppression laws.
Chiesa del Purgatorio
The church was built as a funeral chapel for the Orsini family between 1649 and 1654 for the celebration of suffrage masses for the souls in purgatory. The church has a characteristic entrance portal with a tympanum on which there are two skeletons.
Chiesa dell'Aquila
The most characteristic aspect of this church is the presence of a large eagle in bas-relief on the facade.
It is a church and also a convent built in 1474.