Candela

The “gateway” city of the southern Monti Dauni, Candela rises on the hills of San Rocco and San Tommaso, 500 m above sea level. The history of Candela is linked to the Ofanto river, which divides the town from the Lucanian and Campania side, and to the passage of the sheep tracks of transhumance.

Thanks to its strategic position, Candela is a center with a millenary past, whose essence is still alive in the suggestive medieval village, the Citadella, founded by the Langobards of the Duchy of Benevento.

In Piazza Plebiscito stands the Mother Church dedicated to Santa Maria della Purificazione, which contains a finely worked wooden choir and the Sixteenth-century baptismal font. On the hill of San Rocco stands the church of the same name in Romanesque style with a portal featuring a Byzantine mosaic.