Conversano - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CONVERSANO, a town and episcopal see of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, 17 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Bari. Pop. (1901) 13,685. It has a fine southern Romanesque cathedral of the end of the 11th century, with a modernized interior, and a castle which from 1456 belonged to the Acquaviva family, dukes of Atri and counts of Conversano. The convent of S. Benedetto is one of the earliest offshoots of Montecassino. (See S. Simone, Il Duomo di Conversano, Trani, 1896). Here, or in the vicinity, is the site of the unimportant ancient town of Norba.