Matera Cathedral stands on the ridge at the highest point of Matera in Basilicata, dividing the two districts known as the Sassi. It is built in the Apulian Romanesque style on the site of the ancient Church of Saint Eustace. Construction began in 1203, when Pope Innocent III made Matera an archdiocese, and ended in 1270. In 1627 Archbishop Fabrizio Antinori dedicated it to the Madonna della Bruna and Saint Eustace.
The west front has a rose window with sixteen rays. The campanile on the left is 171 feet (52 meters) tall, and the whole building is 197 feet (60 meters) high. The plan is a Latin cross with three naves, round arches and columns with stone capitals. Baroque decoration was added in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Inside are an Italo-Byzantine fresco of the Madonna and Child from 1270 and choir stalls carved in 1453 by Giovanni Tantino.
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