Today, the church of Santa Maria del Buonconsiglio (Our Lady of Good Counsel) stands as an open space with upright stone columns. The central axis presents eight columns, that is four symmetrically aligned columns on either side. The remains of two semi-pillars stand along the transverse axis. They face one another and are symmetrically aligned with the central axis columns. Both have a moulded base resting upon a rectangular pilaster, but the semi-pillar on the right side of the apse is topped with a further undefined pillar. This structural layout is the same as that of 11th-century Romanesque churches, such as the Basilica of St. Nicholas, and the Churches of St. Gregory and the Vallisa. The remains of the three-nave apsidal Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel are still visible today thanks to an archaeological excavation and a 1983 restoration project. Indeed, they brought the entire area to light, exposing a tiled floor as well as the church’s external walls. Only six of the eight spolia (re-purposed) columns are crowned by Corinthian and waterleaf capitals. Similar capitals stored in the Swabian Castle courtyard are believed to belong to the first two columns of this church.

Prior to the 1983 restoration works, the square had been heavily disfigured by the construction of sidewalks and a parking lot. However, the accounts of the church in the writings of the historian Antonio Beatillo (Historia di Bari, 1637), and the townspeople’s reverence of an ancient image of the Virgin Mary, of which faint traces remain, underline the important role this church played within the ancient town’s religious context.

A preliminary archaeological exploration was thus performed under the supervision of the Regional Apulian Directorate for Environmental, Architectural, Artistic and Historical Heritage. It brought to light three different levels of the church floor corresponding to three historical phases. The first, deeper layer dates back to the 10th century and corresponds to the original three-nave structure of the church with pillars. The mosaic flooring consists of mixed marble and terra-cotta polychrome tiles laid in regular geometric patterns. A few decades later, the floor slab was raised by 15 cm, maintaining the same type and quality of the original ground covering. The second historical phase dates to the 12th century. It is considered the most important as the flooring, found 80 cm below the current street level, consists of 12x12 and 10x10-centimetre limestone and marble tiles laid out in varying patterns, and covers the entire nave. This bears evidence to a restructuring in which the original pillars were replaced by spolia columns and capitals. The third and final phase dates back to the 17th-18th century and can be determined by the layer discovered 50 centimetres below the road level. This layer includes the church’s perimeter walls, along with the remains of the central nave pillars and a concrete tile floor in poor condition. A study of the outer walls shows the presence of ancient plastered pilasters that, apart from being used as Baroque decorative elements, actually suggest the presence of a vaulted ceiling over the aisles. This marks a significant restructuring of the church that favoured the stay of the “Rochet” nuns, in the building, up to 1824. Thereafter, the church was abandoned and left in a state of disrepair until it was ultimately demolished in 1939. The 1984 refurbishment project restored the flooring, consolidated, the walls, reinforced the columns with stainless steel armatures, and repaired the original roads around the church.

The excavations carried out underneath the church revealed an early medieval burial ground with graves that had been damaged during the construction of a water cistern built by Bartolomeo de Risio. An epigraph, originally located on the church door, which was found on an external church wall, attests this. Another burial ground lies behind the apse and houses over twenty pit and coffin tombs, some containing grave goods. The presence of these two burial grounds underlines the religious importance of the settlement, which reached its peak in the 10th-11th century. This site is also interesting owing to another important discovery made during the 1983 excavations that unveiled the remains of a circular hut behind the apse, dating back to the Bronze Age. The finding of this urban area at the tip of the peninsula on which the city was founded connects it to the nearby St. Peter’s area and makes it one of the earliest areas occupied by the first settlement. The remains of the hut are not currently visible as they were covered at the end of the excavation works.