Built-in an Apulian Romanesque architectural style, in the 13th- century it was dedicated to Santa Maria Della Bruna in 1389 and is on the highest point of the city of Matera which divides the two Sassi. Construction began in 1203, the year in which Pope Innocent III raised Matera to the rank of an archdiocese in union with Acerenza as the Archdiocese of Acerenza and Matera, and was completed in 1270. The bell tower of the church is 52metres high and there are statues of San Pietro, San Paolo, Sant'Eustachio and Santa Teopista, masterpieces attributed to the Persio family, master sculptors of Matera in the  16th and 17th-centuries. On the right flank, there are two ornate portals, one of which is the "Dei Leoni", flanked by column-bearing lions. The main feature of the façade is the rose window, divided by 16 small columns. Much of the interior,  which is laid out as a Latin cross,  with a nave and two aisles. had a  Baroque-style makeover in the 17th and 18th century, including gilded stuccoes and frames, but recently a Byzantine-style 14th-century fresco portraying the Last Judgement has been discovered.

Also worth noting is a painted limestone crib by Altobello Persio (1534) and the Madonna della Bruna, a 13th-century Byzantine fresco inserted later in one of the Baroque altars.