The current Church of Crocifisso, by the will of the bishop Crescenzo of Bitonto, incorporates the ancient newsstand of Rapestingo (from the dialect form “rapèstre” a wild plant similar to a radish, of which the area is rich). This newsstand was frequented by a high number of faithful, and they considered miraculous imagine and the blessed oil. As an epigraph placed inside, the church was consecrated by the bishop Acquaviva.
The façade in lime stone presents classic forms interrupted by a tympanum on the portal a volute
in Baroque style. The bell-tower, in quadrangular tower, ends with a pyramidal dome. This last dome remembers the typical Apulia construction, the trullo, embellished by tiles in majolica.
Inside the plant, although, in Latin cross, presents orthogonal axes designed to highlight the spirit of the centripetal factory and remember the local tradition in the rural churches with the dome axis.
The spaces are surmounted by barrel-vault and cross-vault frescoed by episodes of O.T and N. T.
The walls are frescoed in particular by Carlo Rosa, Nicola Gliri (buried on the spot) and Giuseppe Luce; the frescoes on the dome, whose theme is the triumph of the Cross, have been made by De Filippis Vito Antonio.
Considerable are the frescoes inside, made by Carlo Rosa and artists of his school. The two later chapels are embellished by paintings celebrating the life of S. Silvestro and S. Giuseppe. The nineteenth altar, which incorporates the previous, houses behind the ancient imagine of the CROCIFISSIONE, signed by posthumous graffiti, apotropaic signs.
The two ovals situated on the sides, on top of the Crucifix, represent S. FIlippo Apostolo and S. Giacomo.
