ALTAMURA  , a

town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, 28 M . S.S.W. of the town of that name, and 56 m. by rail via Gioia del Colle . Pop . (1901) 22,729 . It possesses a fine Romanesque cathedral begun in 1232 and restored in 1330 and 1531, the portal being especially remarkable . It is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia . The surrounding territory is fertile . The medieval walls, erected by the emperor Frederick IL, rest upon the walls of an ancient city of unknown name . These early walls are of rough blocks of stone. without mortar . Ancient tombs with fragments of vases have also been found, and there are cases which have been used as primitive tombs or dwellings, and a group of some fifty tumuli near Altamura .