| The convent of St. Francesco began to be built in Andria, perhaps on the initiative of Frederick II, around 1230. A new season of work was opened in 1346, during the pontificate of Clement VI. In the second half of the eighteenth century the tower was built in Tuscan style, the work of magisters Vito and Domenico Ieva, and concluded in 1781.
The church was rebuilt in the eighteenth century in Baroque style: the facade was elevated and covered with tuff. The old medieval building remain the two Gothic doorways, one in front, which has carved decorative bands and two animal figures -perhaps two griffins-; on the other side by side, smaller, pointed arch, which contains the carved architrave winged seraphim who donated the Stigmata to Saint Francis. Always in front there are two niches the statues of Saints Francis and Anthony.
Inside the church has a nave with barrel vault on which you can admire the Holy Spirit as a dove, between clouds, Seraphims and golden rays. There are several side altars in polychrome marble, the altar and the balustrade in front, all furnishings and invoice Neapolitan Baroque. On the altars there are several paintings attributed to the painter Nicholas Porta from Molfetta (eighteenth century), and some statues, including that of St. Anthony, stone, dated 1510, and the wooden statue with dress fabric of the Sorrowful Virgin, placed on the altar of the homonymous chapel (called Big Chapel, built in 1867). Inside the wooden choir stand out above (1699) and the choir in gold with an organ of 1766 by artist Andria Thomas Porziotta. Beside the church is the Gothic cloister, once covered with frescoes in the lunettes depicting the miracles of St. Francis.
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