Three Churches, a Single Light
- TuriBorgoAntico

- Dec 22, 2025
- 3 min read
A Pictorial Pilgrimage through the Nativity of Jesus in Turi
There is a silent and ancient way of approaching Christmas: walking slowly through the churches of a town, allowing images to speak, letting painting become story, prayer, and memory.
In Turi, the Nativity of Jesus is not a single image, but a journey in three stages — a small pilgrimage of the soul that passes through San Giovanni Battista, the Mother Church of the Assumption, and Santa Chiara. Three places, three perspectives, one mystery: Bethlehem.
San Giovanni Battista: Christmas in Miniature
In the intimate half-light of the former church of the Reformed Franciscans, the Nativity becomes almost invisible, and precisely for this reason precious. It is a miniature, a fragment of light set within the large painting of the Madonna of the Rosary (1595), attributed to Alonso de Corduba, a painter of Iberian origin active between Bitonto and Ruvo.
Within the small oval of the third Joyful Mystery, Christmas takes shape with miniaturist grace: the Holy Family, the ox and the donkey, an adoring shepherd, the angel, and a sky tinged with the colours of sunset. Everything is contained, essential, as if the painter wished to suggest that the greatest miracle always occurs in silence, on the margins, almost unnoticed.

Mother Church of the Assumption: Christmas that Illuminates
Entering the Collegiate Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Christmas narrative is renewed at the altar of the Madonna of Terrarossa, the devotional heart of the community. Surrounding the celebrated Renaissance panel signed by Stefano da Putignano, the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary unfold, painted in 1742 and most likely by Donato Paolo Conversi.
Here the Nativity is more earthly, more human. The shepherds advance in the foreground; the Virgin holds the Child with a gesture filled with protection and tenderness, while a beam of light enters the stable and leaves Saint Joseph in shadow. It is a Christmas of chiaroscuro, of labour and hope, of rough hands and simple hearts — a painted nativity that speaks of waiting and fragility, as only southern Italian eighteenth-century art can do.

Santa Chiara: Christmas in Motion
In the former conventual church of Santa Chiara, the journey reaches its culmination. Here the Nativity is no longer a miniature or a fragment, but a complete image. The canvas attributed to Samuele Tatulli (Palo del Colle, 1754) draws the viewer into a circular, almost dancing movement.
The Child is at the centre, the source of all light. Mary supports Him and points Him out; Joseph converses with the visitors; angels cross the scene like a breath of air. And then there is Saint Mark, an imposing and unexpected figure, with the lion at his feet — theologically “out of place”, yet visually powerful. Tatulli thus constructs a dynamic, theatrical Christmas, where the birth of Christ becomes a force that attracts, sets things in motion, and breaks conventions to affirm a universal message.

One Mystery, Three Visions
This short itinerary is not merely an artistic journey. It is an invitation to look at Christmas with new eyes — eyes as ancient as those of the shepherds. To recognise that the course of world history changed direction in a stable, amid shadows and light, silences and distant songs.
In Turi, that mystery continues to speak to us, painted on canvas, preserved on altars, entrusted to the gaze of those who still know how to pause.
Source: text adapted from an article by Giovanni Lerede, published on 22/12/2024 – Culture section.
Photo captions (Giovanni Palmisano):
-Madonna of the Rosary, detail of the Nativity, Alonso de Corduba (attrib.), 1595, Church of San Giovanni Battista, Turi.
-Altar of the Madonna of Terrarossa (or of the Rosary), detail of the Nativity, Donato Paolo Conversi (attrib.), 1742, Mother Church of the Assumption, Turi.
-Nativity with Saint Mark the Evangelist, Samuele Tatulli, Turi, Church of Santa Chiara.




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