Palazzo Damato, previously known as Osteria del Veleno, is one of the most significant places in the city as it hosts what is commonly called the Cantina della Sfida, the place where the spark that would lead to the famous Challenge of Barletta was struck.
According to sources, the palace hosted the Grand Captain of the Spanish troops in Italy, Consalvo de Cordova, the one who organized the dinner which would then degenerate into the argument between Italian and French soldiers which provoked the challenge in February 1503. A fight between knights , thirteen on each side, from both factions, which ended with the victory of the Italians, led by Ettore Fieramosca.
The palace presents itself in its fifteenth-century structure, with the pointed arch portal framed by small diamond-shaped ashlars, above which the facade is characterized by a distinctive type of ashlar, widely used in the Apulian architecture of the time.