Saffron, cheese, oil, wine, honey, sultanas and dried figs: these are the “seven golds” borne by the countryside around Galatone, a small town known for its blend of spirituality, art, culture and good food. One of its most important sights is the Santuario della Madonna della Grazia, built around a miraculous icon of the Virgin, depicted with a blackened right eye. Another pilgrimage destination is the sanctuary of the Santissimo Crocifisso della Pietà. It was built in the 17th century from local stone from Lecce, and “carparo” calcarenite stone.
Nardò is a town famous for its culture, and has been since the 16th century, when its rulers, the Acquaviva dukes, turned it into the seat of universities and academies. The central square, Piazza Antonio Salandra, dates from the 14th century, as does the Sedile, one of the town’s oldest buildings. Soaring up in the centre of the square is a spire of dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, which was built as a mark of gratitude after the city survived an earthquake in 1743.
Although Baroque architecture is commonly found throughout the Salento area, for Lecce, nicknamed the Florence of the South, this style has come to represent its main identity. The city’s unrivalled symbol is the Basilica di Santa Croce; it features a breathtaking rose window on which work began in the mid-14th century and the church was not completed until the end of the 17th century. Also dating from the 17th century is the Baroque reworking of the façade of Lecce’s Cathedral, which retains the floorplan of the previous Romanesque church. In Piazza Sant’Oronzo stands the Roman amphitheatre, built between the 1st and 2nd century A.D. It harks back to even more ancient times, when Lecce was called Lupiae.
However, the “beautiful city” by definition, etymologically speaking, is Gallipoli. With the majesty and audacity of a fortress, sheltered to the east by the Angevin castle, it rises brightly out of the sea, like a shell. Its tangle of lanes offer a route that occasionally opens onto belvederes and terraces, inviting us to direct our gaze far away, towards heartbreakingly beautiful panoramas and sunsets, or at squares and monuments which bear witness to the city’s origins as one of the colonies of Magna Graecia. One such example is the 3rd century B.C. Greek fountain, probably the oldest in Italy, or the Baroque cathedral of Sant’Agata, Gallipoli’s patron saint.
