Bitonto

Bitonto is a city and comune in the province of Bari (Apulia region), Italy. It is nicknamed the “City of Olives” due to the numerous olive groves surrounding the city. Bitonto lies approximately 11 km (6.8 mi) to the west of the city of Bari, near the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The city was founded by the Peucetii, and its inhabitants referred to by the Greek settlers of the region as Butontinoi, an ethnonym of uncertain derivation. The foundations of a Paleochristian basilica came to light in excavations beneath the cathedral’s crypt, but no written evidence survives of an established diocese in the Early Middle Ages.
In the Middle Ages Bitonto was a fief of several baronial families, before it passed permanently in the thirteenth century to the Acquaviva.