La rifondazione novecentesca della chiesa di San Giorgio a Bitonto (BA). Una storia urbana = The twentieth-century rebuilding of “San Giorgio” church in Bitonto. An urban history

The medieval Church of San Giorgio in Bitonto (Puglia) has experienced two significant moments of rebuilding, the first at the end of the 17th century, when it received the relics of saints Cosma and Damiano, and the second in 1914, involving an important enlargement of the sanctuary. Recently, in the frame of a restoration project for the church facades, there has been a study of the monument and its urban setting, including accurate structural recording, archival research and stratigraphic analysis of masonry. Numerous clues, such as remains of dwellings beneath the church floor, the irregular character of the surrounding urban spaces, variability in floor heights, morphological structures, and the orientation of streets, allow definition of a framework in which the construction phases of the monument are linked with the urban transformations. Graphic models of synthesis guide the knowledge process, offering a new reading of the history of the city of Bitonto.