The National Gallery of Puglia is located in the Sylos Calò palace, the highest expression of the civil architecture of the Renaissance in Bitonto, an extraordinary scenic backdrop for Piazza Cavour, the result of a complex evolutionary process. Built on buildings of medieval age, in 1573 the building was granted in perpetual lease with the agreement to restore it to Giovanni Alfonso Sylos, a member of a family from Burgos, who arrived in Puglia in 1503. The works were completed in 1584 with the raising of the elegant loggia overlooking the main square of the ancient city.

In July 2004, with a special deed of donation, an important and precious collection of works of art was entrusted by the brothers Rosaria and Girolamo Devanna di Bitonto to the MiBAC with the aim of establishing the National Gallery of Puglia dedicated to modern and contemporary painting .

The collection includes over three hundred works dating from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century and is the result of a passionate research conducted by Girolamo Devanna on the antiques market and among private collectors. The greatest interpreters of Italian and foreign figurative civilization, in particular of the sixteenth , seventeenth and eighteenth centuries , the representatives of "minor schools", significant, however, of alternative paths, the nineteenth -century masters, Italians, are gathered in the Museum French, German, English, and singular creations of contemporary artists also from overseas. Also of great interest is the large number of sketches , preparatory studies , models , replicas or antique copies , not least the precious corpus of drawings which includes inks , pastels , charcoals , pencils , sanguines , watercolors on paper and parchment, by Italian artists and Europeans between the 16th and 20th centuries .