The Basilica of San Nicola is a monument rich in history, art and sacredness. The visitor can be attracted by the artistic style (an almost primitive Romanesque, with sculptural details of high formal value), or by its history (for the presence in this former catepanal palace of protagonists of local and world history)or by faith (the stone translation of that deep religious feeling that was medieval spirituality), or even by its ecumenical vocation.
The splendid and majestic Romanesque basilica of San Nicola in Bari (Italy) had no religious origins like most ecclesiastical buildings. But it was a civil building, in which the Byzantine catepano lived. This was something between the governor of Byzantine Italy and the military commander. From 968, in the context of the reforms of the emperor Nikephoros, Bari was designated as the residence of this representative of the emperor. This lasted until 1071, when the city after three years of siege opened its doors to the Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard.
As the Normans moved rather between Salerno and Palermo, Bari lost its role as capital, and with it much of the trade. This was entering more and more crisis as Muslims occupied Asia Minor. When in 1085 also the main trading partner city, that is Antioch, fell into the hands of the Muslims, the people of Bari tried that coup d'Etat thanks to which they seized the relics of Saint Nicholas (which were on their normal trade route, that is, the southern coast of what is now Turkey.
The relics were provisionally housed in the monastery of San Benedetto under the abbot Elia, who immediately promoted the construction of a new large church to accommodate them. It was chosen the area that until a few years before had housed the palace of the Byzantine catapano, destroyed during the rebellion for municipal freedoms. Work began in July of the same year. On 1 October 1089 the relics were transferred to the crypt of the basilica by Pope Urban II, who had arrived in Bari.
The construction of the basilica, the result of at least three successive phases, was completed in 1197, the year in which a parchment that speaks of the Basilica already "constructa" dates back.
Until the Concordat of 1929 the basilica was the Palatine Church, that is of Royal patronage and exempt from the jurisdiction of the local bishops.
In 1968, Paul VI elevated the temple to the dignity of a pontifical basilica by promulgating the Apostolic Constitution Basilicae Nicolaitanae, motivated by the contribution and "by the impulse to the ecumenical movement.
The basilica also received a restoration between 1925 and 1930 that removed the baroque superstructures, was restored the crypt that preserves the relics of the saint and was restored the Apulian Romanesque style.
