BARI, bit're. An archiepiscopal city and flourishing seaport on the Adriatic, in Southern Italy (Slap: L 6). It is the capital of the Province of Bari delle Puglie, and is on the Bologna-Brindisi Railway. miles northwest of Brindisi. The old part of the town, which is on, the tongue of land that divides the old harbor from the new, has narrow. crooked, gloomy streets. The new part of the town is on a rectangular plan, with broad avenues, squares, and gardens. The most interesting building is the Church and Priory of Saint Nicholas, founded in 1087, where Urban 11., in 1098. as sembled a council of Greek and Latin bishops to discuss the theological differences that di vided the East and the West. It contains the splendid •inausoleum of Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland and Duchess of Bari, who died here in 1557. In a vault tinder the silver altar in the crypt lie the bones of Saint Nicholas, from which is said to exude a fluid, -manna di San Nicola, which heals miraculously. The Saint's festival, on the 8th of llay.is attended by thousands of pilgrims. The cathedral, which dates from the first part of the Eleventh Century. was spoiled by repairs made in the Eighteenth. it contains paintings by Paolo Veronese, Tinto retto. and Calabrese. The castle, built in the
Twelfth Century, is now used as a prison. Bari also has a seminary, a lyceum, the Ateneo, con taining a technic-al school, and a provincial museum, a casino, a theatre constructed by An tonio Niecolini, and public gardens. The new har bor is accessible to the deepest ships. and the town enjoys a growing maritime trade. Some 1672 vessels, with a tonnage of 933. 000, cleared in 1899. as against 1114. with a tonnage of 459,000, in 1890. There is regu lar steamboat communication with Venice, An eons', Trieste, Brindisi, Genoa, and Marseilles. Bari manufactures organs, pianos, mirrors,furni ture. candles, soap. and cordials, and has an ex tensive commerce in oil, wine, almonds, saffron, grain, fruit, cotton. and wool. The United States and other countries are represented by consular agents.
The importance of Barium, Gk. BdpLov, Barion, in the Third Century a.c. is shown by its coins. Horace wrote of the Bari( mrrnia piscosi. In the Middle Ages, Goths, Greeks. Franks. Sara cens. Lombards, Venetians, and Normans fought for the possession of it. Population, in 1881, 61,500; in 1901, 77.478.