The excavations at Canosa di Puglia started at the beginning of this decade as a joint project between the Universities of Foggia and Bari, the Archaeological Superintendency of Apulia and the local administration. The project was centred on the analysis of the transformations of the city and territory between antiquity and the medieval period. The most important moment for the research has been the excavation of two early Christian complexes in the city, both connected to the figure of bishop Sabino, who was certainly on the Episcopal throne in the second quarter of the 6th century. These are the complex of San Pietro traditionally identified with the bishop’s seat but, on the contrary, revealed by the excavations to have been a funerary church, and the complex of San Giovanni-Santa Maria-San Salvatore, the object of investigations in the past.

The excavations in this area between 2006 and 2009 brought to light the remains of an Early Christian basilica pre-dating the well-known 6th century baptistery. The church had a polychrome mosaic floor, a 6th century remake of an earlier mosaic (visible in the sections of the excavation of a number of early medieval tombs), probably relating to the construction of the 4th-5th century church. In particular, part of the church façade was exposed, with an entrance to the central nave and the remains of the portico to the front. The church’s mosaic floor, which now covers most of the central nave, part of the south nave, the columns between the central nave and the south nave, the portico in front of the church were also exposed. In the latter space, in front of the entrance to the basilica, a mosaic carpet came to light depicting a kantheros with a deer on either side..

The discovery of a basilica pre-dating the 6th century in the area of S. Giovanni, combined with the what is known from the written sources, provided the necessary evidence for a proposal to revise the traditional interpretation of San Pietro as the city’s first cathedral in favour of the hypothesis which identifies the earliest urban Episcopal complex with the church of S. Maria (as an early medieval hagiographic source suggests) in the complex of San Giovanni.