Palazzo Baronale (ex Abbazia) di Orsara di Puglia

The building was actually built as the Monastery of the Abbey, which already existed in the eleventh century, as we know from the sepulchral slab of Abbate Pietro, buried in 1005.

The abbey was then built close to the Grotto of San Michele and managed by the Basilians and the Benedictines until 1229, the year in which Pope Gregory IX entrusted the monastery to the Spanish Monastic Order of the Knights of Calatrava, to control the Arab colony deported from Sicily to Lucera by Frederick II.

The Calatrava remained in Orsara until 1294, then the monastery suffered various vicissitudes until in 1524 it was sold to the Guevara, Dukes of Bovino, who transformed it into a noble residence modifying the interior according to their needs.

Today the entire building is privately owned, except for some rooms located next to the Church of the Annunciation, owned by the Diocese of Lucera-Troia and which correspond to those that were the premises of the refectory of the Xenodochio. From Piazza Mazzini you can access the courtyard of the building through a beautiful stone portal with ashlar ashlar diamond, while in Via Calatrava still insists on the arch on which the balcony that connected the Baronial Palace to the Palace of the Princess of Solofra.