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LECCE

Lecce, a city in Apulia of 94.907  inhabitants , is of Messapian origin. According to tradition, it was founded in the V century B.C. by Malennio, whose daughter Euippa married Idomeneo, the hero coming from Troia who had already defeated his father-in-law, taking possession of the reign. The town was originally called Sybaris, then because of Idomeneo, Lytium or Lycium. Lecce kept being a Messapian town, though it was also influenced by Magna Graecia, even after the Roman Conquest (267 B.C.). It opposed the expansionistic aims of Taranto, it allied itself with Athens in the 341 year of Rome and it sent 1500 archers in support of the Greek town for the war in Sicily.
The mysterious Messapian people, proud of their civilization and their military power, gave a lot of trouble at first to the Greeks in the South Italy and then to the Romans. Imposing walls, archaeological stations (Rudiae, Cavallino, Muro Leccese, Alezio, Ugento) remain in Salento and in Lecce itself, during fortuitous excavations: sometimes appear tombs, inscriptions, funeral equipment of which we can see some finds in the local museum S. Castromediano while the most part of funeral furnishings is preserved in the National Museum of Taranto.
Between 629 and 267 B.C., owing to the wars between the Messapian-Salentine confederates, Taranto and Pirro and the Urbe (Rome), the Roman conquest occurred in Salento, where the Messapian language and the different dialects from Magna Graecia were spoken, but which, during the seven years of Latin domination, completely disappeared.
In the neighbourhood of Lecce, in the meantime declared Statio Militum Lupiae, Quinto Ennio was born in Rudiae in 239 B.C., a famous Roman poet, proud of his Roman citizenship, but also proud of his Messapian-Rudian origins.
Lecce and Salento, after occasional rebellions, linked their fortunes to Rome, to which they were always faithful and the town, taking part in Camilla tribe, also succeeded in opposing Hannibal who wasn't able to violate its walls. Roman soldiers and colonies settled in Lecce, and in particular we must remember that in 102 B.C. a colony was founded, led by C. Mario Nepote and by L. Lutazio Catulo. Another colony was established in the town in 75 A.D., under the power of Vespasian. Of the Roman age some epigraphs, some ruins, an amphitheatre and a theatre remain in Lecce, belonging the two last ones to the II century A.D.
Of Roman Age is the column which bears the statue of St. Oronzo, patron of the town, who, together with Saints Giusto and Fortunato is celebrated from 24th to 26th August. Such column, in the homonymous St. Oronzo square, is one of the two final shafts of the Appian Way, ending in Brindisi. And the people from Brindisi themselves, in the late XVII century, due to favours received by St. Oronzo, gave the column as a gift to Lecce in order to put the statue of the Saint thaumaturge on its top.
The Romans achieved the port of St. Cataldo, a famous beach for Lecce's people now, which is about 10 kilometres far from the town. Once this landing place, belonging to the Adrian age (it was so called Adrian), was one of the most important in the Adriatic, but it declined inexorably in the middle Ages.
We can already notice the presence of Christianity in the II century A.D. in Lecce, which was one of the most ancient Episcopal seats. Owing to the crisis of the Roman Empire the town lost its self-confidence, it suffered devastation from pirates. In 542, during the Greek-Gothic war, it was destroyed by Totila, then the Saracens arrived between the IX and X centuries. On the Western Empire's falling, Lecce with a large part of Apulia became Byzantine. The town declined, it was involved in the conflicts between Byzantium and the Longobards of the grand duchy of Benevento, and Romualdo's mercenary troops conquered it in 680, granting people, after some time, piece and prosperity.
A few years later, the town was destroyed by Saracens, then by the Hungarians, after that by the Slavs. The greedy Byzantine power came back and between the VIII and IX centuries they excited the iconoclastic persecutions which obliged the monks coming from Sicily, Calabria and from the other Adriatic bank to hide themselves in the gorges of desert and woody areas and they sheltered in the hypogeal (underground) crypts they frescoed with the images of the saints of the oriental rite.
In the X century Otto II from Saxony subjected Lecce, which in 983 passed again to the Byzantines and it was annexed to the Catapanato of Bari. Between 1055 and 1069 the Norman conquest of Terra d'Otranto happened and Lecce became the earldom of d'Altavilla family. After saving himself from a shipwreck, in 1182 the count Tancred founded the Romanesque church of the Saints Niccolò and Cataldo (now in the cemetery), but the small contemporary church of St. Mary d'Aurio, five kilometres far from the town is Norman too. In spite of some civil wars, under the domination of the Northern lords, Lecce was rich and powerful, in the reign it was second only to Palermo. The Normans also built mighty walls, the Mastio, now included in Carlo V's castle, the still active Benedictine Monastery of St. John the Evangelist.
After being passed to the Swabians because of the marriage between Constance d'Altavilla and Henry VI of Hohenstaufen dinasty, who procreated Frederick II, the town belonged to the Angevins in 1268 who granted it to the Brienne family as a feud, then in 1356 it belonged to the Enghien family, under whose power it was favoured, above all in the times of the countess Mary who married Raimondello Orsini del Balzo in 1385 and, remaining a widow, she became the wife of King Ladislao who married her only for political aims. The XIV century tower of Belloluogo (nice place), on the old road for Surbo, dates back to the age of Brienne family. Together with the tower of Parco, built in the XV century by Giovannantonio del Balzo, heir to Mary, it represents a symbolic witness of the Angevin military architecture,  before the use of fire-arms.
In 1446 Lecce was under the domination of Orsini del Balzo, princes of Taranto; 17 years later it was confiscated by the Aragonese monarchy, but it remained without any prince till the age of Carlo VIII from France who, while staying in Naples, assigned it to Gilberto of Brunswick. After that, the kings of the two Sicilies gave their third-born sons the earldom of Lecce, though as only an honorific title...
In 1480 Otranto was sacked and Lecce repelled a sally from Islamites. The following year, due to the plague, 15.000 people died, almost the same number of inhabitants who had died due to the epidemic which raged between 1466 and 1468. Flourishing Venetian, Tuscanian, Greek-Albanian, Ragusan, Hebrew and Genoese colonies had already settled in the town, trade prospered, but they were not idyllic times. During the Franco-Spanish war, Lecce in 1502 fell into transalpine people's hands and in the times of the king of Spain Ferdinand the Catholic, there was the massacre of the Hebrews who, in spite of some discrimination, had been defended by Mary of Enghien and Ferrante of Aragon.
During the Spanish power, the capital of Salento, like the other places dominated by the Iberians, was subjected to fiscal pressure. But in this period, the reminiscence of Otranto's slaughter was still alive, so the fear of the Turks lay heavy more than ever among the population of Salento. The coasts and the farmhouses were fortified, the towns were surrounded by walls and Lecce was also endowed with new defensive buildings. In 1539 Carlo V ordered to build new town-walls and a mighty castle which, planned by Gian Giacomo dell'Acaya, still today rises proud, while of the fortified walls with ramparts only few parts in bad conditions remain. In the meantime the Medieval town was disappearing and Lecce was fortified by Ferrante Loffredo, master of Terra d'Otranto, according to the criteria required by the use of artillery. When Lecce became the capital of Apulia (1539) it extended its borders, it took a more rational aspect, it adorned itself with churches, convents, palaces, administrative and judicial organs, it became an attractive place for nobles, artists and men of letters.
Sciences and arts flourished, various academies were built such as: Lupiense (XV century), that of Trasformati (XVI century), of Speculatori (XVIII century) and finally Salentine Academy, later founded by Jesuite Fathers.
In the XVI century Lecce finally lived in piece, a piece guarded by numerous and powerful clergy who favoured brotherhoods, congregations, and schools which managed efficient spiritual centres. Thanks to the church, charitable and philanthropic institutions were built in order to relieve the miseries of the poor and foundlings. The town had remained out of the storm of the Protestant Reform, and only with the presence of Theatines and Jesuites, respectively arrived in 1574 and 1586, it lived the new spirit of the Church renewed by the Council of Trent.
Between the XVI and XVII centuries a feverish atmosphere pervaded the town which became a huge central point for so many civil and religious works that private people, ecclesiastic congregations and secular clergy busied themselves raising again and again beautiful, imposing, buildings in a sort of constant emulation which gave shape to the present aspect of the old part of Lecce, where we can notice the triumph of Baroque everywhere.
Nevertheless it is a particular and unrepeatable Baroque, influenced by the theatrical and spectacular taste of the Spanish culture, but it is made unique by the characteristics of the local stone, ductile, ready for any engraving, any arabesque, being of a straw colour which also generates heat. There were many skilled workers of leccìsu, sculptors and stone cutters who embellished the fronts and altars and the insides of patrician houses and of middle class who, in their turn, emulated the mighty ones for wealth.
Among the most famous monuments of this age we must remember the Arch of Triumph, built in 1548 in honour of Charles V and, among so many churches the first of all is the basilica of Santa Croce (Holy Cross), built between 1549 and 1646 with the adjoining Convent of Celestines, today seat of the Provincial administration and Prefecture. For the construction of this church, which represents the highest and the most accomplished expression of the Baroque in Lecce, famous local architects (C. Riccardi, C. Penna and G. Zimbalo) as well as engravers and stone-cutters lavish their own talents were involved. We can notice the triumph of Baroque above all in the front of the temple, a front rich in symbols, statues, decorations and allegories.
The "church-town" has got a famous Cathedral, in a suggestive and homonymous square, where we also find the Bishop's Palace and the Seminary. Built in 1114 and completely rebuilt between 1659 and 1670
by Giuseppe Zimbalo, the author of the imposing bell tower too, this temple devoted to the Virgin Mary has got Baroque altars, the crib by C. Riccardi and the crypt of 1517.
In G. Libertini street we find the churches of St. John the Baptist (or of Rosario) of XVII century, of St. Ann (XVII century) and St. Teresa (XVII century). On Corso Vittorio Emanuele rises the temple of St. Irene, built between XVI and XVII centuries, according to a plan by F. Grimaldi, with a front in XVI century style. In St. Oronzo square, few metres far from the column of the Patron of the town, there are the ex small church of St. Marco and the Sedile, both of them of the XVI century. In front of the Roman amphitheatre, still partly buried, we find the church of Santa Maria della Grazia (of Grace), built at the end of the XVI century, with classical influences, planned by F. Coluzio. Near there, in Maremonti street there is the church of St. Anthony from Padua (or of St. Joseph), of 1566, but with front and inside restorations of the XVIII century. At a short distance, in Vittorio Emanuele II square we find the church of St. Chiara, probably raised in 1694 by G. Cino. In Perroni street, the church of St. Matteo is not so far, built by A. Larducci between 1667 and 1700, with the characteristic front which reminds us of that of the temple of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (St. Charles to the Four Fountains), in Rome. In Rubichi street we find the church of Jesus or del Buon Consiglio (of the Good Advice), raised by the Jesuites in the late XVI century and planned by G. de Rosis; in the small square of SS. Addolorata (Our Lady of Sorrows) we find the church of St. Angel, probably built by C. Zimbalo, in 1663. Near there, in Peruzzi square, the church of St. Mary of Angels (or of San Francesco di Paola) of the XVI century and finally, in Tancred square, the church of Carmine, rebuilt from 1711 to 1717 by G. Cino, on  a XVI century building.
These are Lecce's churches, but the tourist can still find out so many ones and wandering for the town. He can observe the superb noble palaces which, between the XVI century and the XVIII century, brought prestige and honour to the old part of the town. Among the XVI century buildings, we must remember the following palaces: Veinazza Castromediano, Guarini, Gorgoni, Loffredo-Adorni, Saraceno, Martirano, Pensini-Morisco, Fumarola-Spada, Perrone, Panzera, Prato, della Ratta, Giaconìa, Prioli, Giustiniani, de Raho, Morelli, Maresgallo, Luperto, Lecciso, Zimara, Forleo and Mettola. The following palaces are in XVII century style: Costantini, Lanzialao, Tafuri, Personè, Paladini, Giugni, GrassiCattani, Rossi, Mariscalchi, Martucci, and Palumbo. Of the XVIII century, then, are the palaces such as: Marrese, Guarini, Balsamo, Belli, Palumbo, Rollo, de Simone, Manieri, Montefusco, D'Amore, Lopez y Royo-Personè, Tresca, Carrozzo, Stabile, Bozzicorso, Lubelli and Tiso.
The history of Lecce, during the XVI century, was without any important events, but the XVII century was not surely quiet. The news of the revolt of Masaniello, in Naples (1647) spread over the town, nevertheless every attempt of rebellion was severely repressed. The Spanish misrule squeezed population very much, besides there were also the abuses of greedy feudatories, civil wars broke out in the town for political factions too so that in 1646 the bishop Pappacoda was obliged to arm all the clergy.
The town of Lecce is not only famous for its churches and its Baroque palaces, but also for a very typical art which, though achieved through poor material, has produced and still produces, though in a minor tone, works of undisputed value and prestige. We are referring to the paper-pulp, already used in the XVII century, which has slowly seen the flourishing of famous artists such as: Pietro Surgente, Achille de Lucrezi, Giovanni Andrea De Pascalis, Luigi Guacci, Giuseppe Manzo, Raffaele Carretta, Antonio Malecore, Pitro Indino and Angelo Capoccia, who have illustrated so many churches of Lecce, in Italy and in the world, with their paper Saints and with their "shepherds", which still today show themselves during the "Fair of St. Lucia" (13th – 14th December), when “pupi” (small paper puppets which represent the characters of the Nativity) and cribs are exhibited.
An awful plague afflicted Lecce in 1656, and St. Oronzo was supposed to have stopped the plague, since then the Saint protomartyr has become the Patron of the town.
In the XVIII century, a prolific year for letters and arts, churches and palaces kept being built. But the town life was sad as it was subjected to the rigours of ecclesiastical collectors of taxes. In 1710 a revolt broke out against the clergy, the king supported the population which was excommunicated by the bishop Fabrizio Pignatelli, whose interdict lasted till 1719. The abuses of power committed by the nobles and the town conflicts tormented the population.
In 1749 the Hebrews were definitely expelled from Lecce, by order of Charles III of Bourbon.
The Enlightenment, in 1799, ended in the Parthenopean reign with the famous revolutionary riots which exalted republic. In Lecce too, on 9th February of that year the tree of freedom was raised, but after 24 hours it was cut down and then there was the cruel repression on the part of the reactionary clergy and royalists. After two centuries of subjection to Bourbons, in 1821 Lecce took part in the rebellion of the liberals who 27 years later set up a provisional government. The Risorgimento in Lecce includes, among the other ones, famous characters such as: Giuseppe Libertini and Sigismondo Castromediano. Finally, in 1860, the town was annexed to the Reign of Italy and, after the Unity, between 1895 and 1915, for the first time it extended beyond the 16th century walls, endowing itself with many public buildings.
In this period the walls fortified with rampart were demolished and their ruins were used to fill up the ditches of putrid water. In these rooms, above all along viale (Avenue) Gallipoli and viale Lo Re, some small villas of eclectic style were slowly built, constructions which show something exotic, oriental which harmonizes with the trends of time and with building and decorative experiences already present in the town, the  neo-classical ones, together with the most various styles.



It is advisable to check also the availability of the apartments in Santa Maria di Leuca and the hotels in Porto Cesareo.
 
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