Municipality of Celle di San Vito, Small Church of San Vito

Celle di San Vito, with the site of San Vito, where the Mutatio Aquilonis is identified, is the entrance to Puglia of the Francigena del Sud, coinciding in this area with the route of the consular Via Traiana. It is not easy to date the religious building, although we know that the oldest authentic document referring to it is the Bull of Paschal II (1100) preserved in the archives of the Troia Cathedral.

The small religious building was originally run by the monks of the Monastery of San Nicola, which formed the original nucleus of the Borgo di Celle San Vito. Later, ownership and worship passed first to the Clergy of Castelluccio Valmaggiore, then under the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Celle San Vito, although the building falls within the territory of nearby Faeto.

Between the Church and the Taverna, today the Masseria of the Maresca counts, is the spring, Mutatio Aquilonis, with a fountain from which the Celone (or Aquilone) river flows. For decades, the small church dedicated to ‘Sant’Uìte’, now restored, was a ruin of undoubted charm, but over time it has lost much of its character, such as the extraordinary rose window in stone that decorated the small façade, stolen years ago by unknown persons. The service room adjacent to the church, used in the past as a hermitage and as a shelter for pilgrims, is the object of intervention.