BASILICA SAN MARTINO - MUSEO MUBA
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Basilica dominated by the campanile of the primitive church in Martina Franca.
St. Martin's Basilica was built in the heart of the historic centre between 1747 and 1767, on the site of a previous Romanesque church that had been damaged by the 1743 earthquake. Its sumptuous baroque façade, with rococo decorations, and the portal surmounted by a high relief depicting St. Martin sharing his mantle with a beggar, are noteworthy. The building is dominated by the bell tower of the primitive church, incorporated into the right transept. Inside the single nave, in the central apse, the polychrome marble altar designed by the Neapolitan Giuseppe Sanmartino, better known for his statue of the veiled Christ kept in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples. The latter also carved the allegories of Charity and Abundance to the left and right of the altar. In the chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento, added at the end of the 18th century, the Rococo painter Domenico Carella created the altar painting depicting the Last Supper. He is also credited with the painting of Tobias and the angel in the left transept.
Behind the basilica, the Museo della Basilica (MuBa) is housed on the first floor of Palazzo Stabile (Via Stabile, 4), a baroque-rococo palace with two superimposed loggias on the façade. The museum houses many treasures from St. Martin's Basilica, including the silver statues of Santa Comasia and San Martino, the patron saints of the city, and a collection of sacred furnishings, parchments, books, and so on.
