1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Altamura

ALTAMURA, a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, 28 m. S.S.W. of the town of that name, and 56 m. by rail via Gioia del Colle. Pop. (1901) 22,729. It possesses a fine Romanesque cathedral begun in 1232 and restored in 1330 and 1531, the portal being especially remarkable. It is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia. The surrounding territory is fertile. The medieval walls, erected by the emperor Frederick II., rest upon the walls of an ancient city of unknown name. These early walls are of rough blocks of stone without mortar. Ancient tombs with fragments of vases have also been found, and there are cases which have been used as primitive tombs or dwellings, and a group of some fifty tumuli near Altamura.