Andria Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and is the seat of the Bishop of Andria. The present cathedral was built by the Norman Geoffrey of Hauteville, lord of Andria, on top of an earlier small church of the 7th-8th century, which forms the present crypt. It received further extensive refurbishment and reconstruction in the mid-14th century in the Late Gothic style, and again later in the Baroque style. The cathedral was severely damaged by a fire in 1916 and was again restored in 1965. The frequent rebuildings have given what is basically a Norman church a predominantly Late Gothic appearance.
The crypt, dedicated to the Holy Saviour (San Salvatore) - unlike the main cathedral, which is dedicated to the Assumption - contains the tombs of two of the wives of Emperor Frederick II, Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem (Yolande) and Isabella of England.
The cathedral owns a gold reliquary of special importance, and two major 19th-century paintings by Michele de Napoli.
References: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.