page_title: Otranto Cathedral
section_title: Interior
hierarchical_section_title: Otranto Cathedral / Description / Interior
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Mosaico della Cattedrale di Otranto
context_page_description: Otranto Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the Italian city of Otranto, dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. It is the archiepiscopal seat of the Archdiocese of Otranto. The cathedral was consecrated in 1088. It is 54 metres long by 25 metres wide and is built on 42 monolithic granite and marble columns from unknown quarries. Its plan is a three-aisled nave with an apsidal east end. On either side of the west façade are two lancet windows.
  The most famous feature of the cathedral is the 12th-century floor mosaic covering the entire floor of the nave, the sanctuary and the apse, which is one of the best to survive.
context_section_description: The interior plan has a nave and two aisles with apses, separated by twelve arches, which are supported by fourteen granite columns each with a different capital
  The high altar is in the presbytery area, with an 18th-century silver antependium, with episodes of the Annunciation of Mary.  
  The remaining frescoes on the walls include traces of Byzantine-style figures, such as the Madonna with Child in the right aisle. The aisles house six altars dedicated to the Resurrection of Jesus, St. Dominic, Assumption of Mary (right), the Pentecost, the Visitation of Mary and St. Anthony of Padua (left), respectively. The left aisle is also home to a Baroque-style baptistery from the mid-18th century, a funerary monument to Francesco Maria de Aste (died 1719) and the mausoleum of  Gaetano Cosso (died 1655). 
  The right aisle ends with the Chapel of the Martyrs. It houses, in seven large glassed recesses, the bones of the Otranto citizens slaughtered and beheaded by the Ottomans on 14 August 1480 after they had refused to abandon the Christian faith. Behind the marble altar is the alleged "Martyrdom Rock", a stone where, according to the tradition, the eight hundred people were killed. 
  The crypt, mostly located under the apse and the presbytery, dates from the 11th century and is inspired by Theodosius' cistern and the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. It has three semi-circular apses and forty-eight bays supported by more than seventy columns, semicolumns and pillars taken from different ancient and medieval buildings. The decoration includes remains of frescoes dating from the Middle Ages through the 16th century.
caption: The pavement mosaics.
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