The Cross, where the town pauses and remembers

A story of a stone threshold along Via Rutigliano

Those arriving in Turi from Via Rutigliano encounter, almost without noticing, a place that for centuries has taught the town the meaning of passage. It is the large votive shrine of the Calvary, known to everyone simply as the Cross. More than a sign of devotion, it is a silent presence that tells the story of those who enter, those who leave, and those who remain in memory.

Once, it marked the northern boundary of the town. Beyond it lay the road away from home; before it, the return. Today the Cross is surrounded by buildings and absorbed into the urban fabric, yet its deeper meaning has not changed. It is still the place where the world of the living meets that of the dead: funeral processions still pass before it on their final journey to the cemetery, as they have for generations.

The Cross has always been a gate, in the oldest sense of the word—symbolic before architectural. Perhaps for this reason the neighbourhood that grew around it took its name from it, recognising it as a centre, a point of reference, a shared root.

A story written in stone and time

Probably built at the end of the nineteenth century, the shrine underwent only minor changes over the years—flooring, interior colours, roofing—none of which altered its essence. The most significant transformation came in the 1930s, when the small temple was dismantled and reconstructed using the technique of anastylosis.

Before then, the Cross faced a different direction: rotated by 90 degrees, with its entrance parallel to the new Via Rutigliano and its side elevation towards the town. Later, with the reorganisation of De Donato Giannini and Masi streets and the creation of the small square in front, the shrine was rotated again and set back by a few metres, assuming its current orientation, with the façade facing the town, as if to welcome and protect it.

Restoration and the heart of the neighbourhood

In 1994, thanks to the shared commitment of the parish priest of San Giovanni, Don Lorenzo Renna, the architect Giuseppe Giannini, and the parish community, the Cross was restored. This was not merely a conservation project: the small neo-Gothic temple regained its role as the focal point of the neighbourhood that had grown around it, recognised rather than overshadowed.

The large pointed arch and the lateral pilasters topped with small lanterns recall cathedral portals and Gothic ciboria—a learned architectural language translated with skill and simplicity by anonymous local stonemasons, who turned stone into narrative.

A place still asking to be heard

More than fifteen years after that intervention, the Cross seems to ask not for urgent restoration, but for renewed attention. The open space before it, now a simple road junction, could become the true centre of the neighbourhood, a recognisable urban space worthy of the name it already bears: Piazza della Croce.

Because this votive shrine is not merely a religious structure. It is a scenic backdrop, a collective memory, a threshold that continues to tell the story of the town to those willing to pause and listen. And as long as the Cross remains there, Turi will not forget where it comes from.

Sources and credits

Text faithfully reworked from the original article by Giovanni Lerede, Edicola votiva di via Rutigliano. Portale d’ingresso al rione della Croce.

Photographs: Giovanni Palmisano..