Foggia Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Foggia-Bovino. The present Romanesque building was constructed as a collegiate church in the 1170s, but was damaged in the earthquake of 1731 and restored in a Baroque style.
When the Diocese of Foggia was created in 1855, the collegiate church was declared its cathedral. The diocese was elevated to an archdiocese in 1979 and amalgamated with the Diocese of Bovino to form the Archdiocese of Foggia-Bovino in 1986.
The church contains an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary, whence its alternative name of Santa Maria Icona Vetere. The icon is also sometimes known as the Madonna dei sette veli, or the Madonna of the Seven Veils.
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The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.