Overview
The Barletta Civic Museum, housed in the Swabian castle, is divided into four sections with works from the 15th century and canvases from the Neapolitan school, works by 19th-century artists native to Barletta such as Vincenzo De Stefano, Giuseppe Gabbiani and Raffaele Girondi, an original and diverse collection of handicrafts, and above all the Lapidarium, which was reorganised in 2018. Here the undisputed star is the bust of Frederick II, a stone bust just over a metre high, depicting a man crowned with laurel and wearing classically inspired robes. It is not proven that it is precisely Frederick II, but so does a tradition never denied by scientific studies: if so, it would be not only the only statue depicting the emperor, but also the first portrait carved after the end of the Roman Empire that has come down to us.
