Trani Cathedral is dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Pilgrim, whose relics it was built to house. Construction began in 1099 over an earlier 4th-century church, Santa Maria della Scala, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1143. Bishop Bertrando II led the decisive stage, which likely ran from about 1159 to 1186. The article names no architect.
The style is Apulian Romanesque, and the cathedral is built of local pale pink tuff quarried from Trani's caves. The plan has a nave and two aisles divided by double columns, a transept with three apses and a blind-arcaded facade. The bell tower is 194 feet (59 m) high and was mostly built from 1230 to 1239.
A lower church holds the Crypt of St. Nicholas and the hypogeum of St. Leucius. The bell tower was dismantled and rebuilt in the 1950s.
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