Church of San Rocco

Affectionately known as “the Cappellina”, the Church of San Rocco is the oldest monument still visible in Turi. Its Proto-Romanesque forms with Byzantine influences place its construction between the 11th and 12th centuries.

The building was erected to protect the “Lacum Thuri”, an ancient floodplain located outside the town walls, once known as the area of waters and wells. The small church stood along the route linking the settlement to these wells, bearing witness to its role as a spiritual guardian of places vital to the community’s survival.

A rare example of a church with two aligned domes, San Rocco features a single rectangular nave divided into two spaces, each covered by a semi-spherical dome. The exterior, built from regular blocks of local stone, is embellished with a double sawtooth crenellation, the only decorative element of an architecture that is otherwise austere yet elegant.

The roof structures, also visible from the outside, consist of two drums topped with square-based pyramids clad in chiancarelle stone slabs, recalling the characteristic form of the trullo. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, a small bell gable was added, while in 1505 a dedicatory inscription to Saint Roch, the thaumaturge saint from whom the church takes its name, was carved into the lintel.

Today, the Cappellina of San Rocco stands as a precious testament to Turi’s medieval origins—a place of silence and devotion that preserves intact the charm of Apulia’s earliest sacred architecture.