The present cathedral was built by the Norman Geoffrey of Hauteville, lord of Andria, on top of an earlier small church of the 7th-8th century, which forms the present crypt. It received further extensive refurbishment and reconstruction in the mid-14th century in the Late Gothic style, and again later in the Baroque style. The cathedral was severely damaged by a fire in 1916[1] and was again restored in 1965. The frequent rebuildings have given what is basically a Norman church a predominantly Late Gothic appearance.
^A brief account of the exhumation and examination of the coffins of the two empresses by Professor Fornaciari in 1993, when the unexpected remains of several additional bodies were discovered, is hereArchived April 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine ((in Italian)
