Ariano

Ariano rises on the hills of the southern Apennines, overlooking the roads between the regions of Campania and Apulia. Its cathedral and castle stand above quarters that grew along the ridges and slopes. The town's high position offered command of the passes, but its buildings were repeatedly vulnerable to earthquakes.

The cathedral was destroyed in the earthquake of 1456 and rebuilt in the following century. Bishop De Hippolitis began a new façade around 1500, and his successor completed it. The bishops continued work on the church after earlier rebuilding, while its Romanesque façade preserved the form given to it around 1500. Further shocks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries damaged the building again, requiring repeated repairs to the cathedral and its surrounding town.