From the obvious Spanish touch, the Palazzo Carida Ramirez is built on two levels with arcades on the ground floor and a finely decorated lodge on the main floor. Inside, it is possible to admire the vaults decorated with frescoes of the 19th century. The Palace also has a garden and a beautiful terrace overlooking the sea. ...

The Palazzo Paternò appears as a noble residence of a remarkable size of the XV - XVI century. In fact, the palace conceals an ancient Norman fortress, surrounded until the early 19th century by a deep moat on the east and north sides, while the rest by a swamp. The ancient castle has four towers on the corners of a rectangular central keep. In 1565 the Gonzagas began to transform the castle into a noble residence through the construction of a new building along the northwest, the opening of a north entrance and the construction of stables and lodges. In 1630 Princess Maria Cito Moles did further restructuring of the castle, refining the fortress with a wide lodge, a hanging garden full of ornamental plants, and building a chapel dedicated to the Annunciation overlooking the ...

Inaugurated in 2008, the Museo del Giunco Palustre is located inside the nineteenth-century Palazzo Villani of Acquarica del Capo. The museum, established to commemorate the presence of wetlands in Salento and to value the artistic history of marsh bulrush crafts, houses numerous educational panels that recount the different phases of the craftsmanship of the bulrushes following a sophisticated practice covetously preserved by the women of Acquarica, who worked as basket-makers. Among the various processes are illustrations of the harvesting done exclusively by men, the boiling, the drying and the zolfatura, which took place in special cubicles – the “stove” rooms - where coals were burned with sulfur. The weaving of the bulrushes was the final stage of the process and was ...

Housed in the convent of Santa Maria della Pieta, the Nuovo Museo Civico di Archeologia tells the story of the town of Ugentino in different chronological phases through the archaeological contexts and finds of the latest discoveries. The exhibition is articulated into chronological phases and is divided into thematic sections. The exhibition spaces are distributed in two floors and display archaeological finds ranging from prehistory to the Middle Ages accompanied by educational panels. The dining hall, on the ground floor, houses a large model that reconstructs the ancient Ugento based on the studies conducted to date: Messapian walls, roads and cemeteries can be observed. The ground floor rooms also houses discoveries from infant burials, from members of the aristocrat ...

The collection, stored inside Palazzo Colosso in Ugento, is a compilation begun by Baron Colosso and continued by the late Adolfo Colosso, a passionate lover of local history. The collection is housed in the former stables of the homonymous Palace, covetously guarded by his sons Luigi and Massimo. The collection features 794 finds, ranging from the 6th century B.C. up to early Medieval age, in addition to which are examples of Modern age such as armors, weapons and cannon balls. The finds dating from the 6th century BC to the Hellenistic period consist mainly of local pottery like trozzelle and plates in reddish brown varnish. Alongside the ceramics of indigenous production are those imported from Greece like lekythoi attiche. Among the coroplastica / terracotta ...

The Palazzo Baronale is an impressive architectural complex of great interest; was built in the late seventeenth century, next to the remains of the sixteenth century castle of which remains a square tower with loopholes and machicolations. It presents an austere facade with round portal bearing the coat of arms of the feudal family and windows distributed in the higher order different from the lower by a string course cornice. ...

The Museo Diocesano di Ugento  – Santa Maria di Leuca, strongly willed by Mons. Vito De Grisantis, was inaugurated on the 6th of July 2005 and is set in a building located below the Cathedral, which once served as a burial place for the clergy and for the citizens. The museum displays works from the cathedral and the churches of the diocese. The heritage of the Diocesan Museum of Ugento consists of paintings on canvas, devotional statues in papier-mâché, vestments, missals, scrolls, and antiphonaries and cartaglorie. There are also many other precious religious objects, mostly in silver, as the chalices, vessels and Eucharistic thrones. Currently, the structure is under renovation, but will be returned to the public in the short time. ...

The architectural structure of Palazzo Bitonti is composed of an "old" part dating from the seventeenth century and “new” parts that were built later, but in an unknown time since the documents were lost. The palace is in line with the domestic chapel dedicated to Madonna della Consolazione and to San Giuseppe, which is the chapel wanted by the archpriest Don Gaetano Bitonti. The edifice has two floors with a letter “U” floor plan, following a design diffused in the province, with the rooms on the lower level intended for services and those of the upper floor intended as noble residence. The ground floor is accessible through a single entrance leading into a large atrium with barrel vault that precedes an open court separated by elegant pillars made of Leccese ...

Among the surviving elements of the thirteenth-century castle, the Romanesque arch is recognizable, created with Leccese stone, guilloche and decorated with acanthus leaves, plants and animals mounted on the facade of the western side. The tower, built in the mid-sixteenth century by the feudal lords Gattinara Lignani, functioned as defense from the Turks, has small windows with acute arches and a protruding parapet on quatrefoil corbels and culminated with a Guelphic battlement. The main façade, which looks out on Piazza Castello, is embellished with portals with bas-reliefs depicting late baroque floral subjects, the Cross of the Order of the Knights of Malta and the coats of arms of some feudal families of Taurisano. The interiors are fully decorated with distemper. ...

Located on the south side of the square, the elegant Palazzo Comi dates back to the mid-nineteenth century and is an interesting example of residential architecture of the XIX-XX centuries in minor urban centers of Salento. The complex integrates the representative-residential functions with the agriculture-production ones, an expression of a culture tied to the small nobility and local middle-class land ownership. The edifice, from the simple and schematic facade to the lowest floor, consists of continuous bands of smooth rustication, while the uppermost floor has very slender gabled windows. The complex is centered on the inner courtyard which is accessible through an atrium, turned in front of which is, on the upper floor, an elegant gallery with Ionic columns with architraves. The ...

The palace is located in the historic center of Salve, at the intersection of Piazza Repubblica with Via Crocifisso. The facade is characterized by a typical rusticated portal and two rounded-stone balconies resting on five large corbels, arranged on the two outermost sides of the facades, which widen toward the street almost in the shape of a semicircle. Inside, the palace is embellished with a courtyard in which the grace of baroque ornaments fits perfectly with the slender architectural lines. Two high pillars come off on the opposite side of the entrance door, enriched with ornaments and on which rest the finely embroidered arches. Swirls, plates, heads of angels and floral motifs alternate with columns engraved with the "orrisroot", especially that, along with an allegorical ...

The Montano house-tower is located within the historic center of Salve. Built in 1562 (as indicated by the date that appears on one of the towers of the building), it was a safe haven for the inhabitants. It has a square plan with guarding towers in the corners, for ambush of the sentries, with a strong projection on elegant and carved corbels, making it the most complete and beautiful towers of Salve. The tower leans against a palace with which now constitutes a unique complex; the palace dates back to the seventeenth century, as indicated by the date on one of the windows on the first floor (1617) and over the years has had different uses, including that of Police Stations.   ...

Along the seafront of Leuca, at the end of the nineteenth century, engineers Ruggeri and Rossi and the architect Arditi tested their creativity by building numerous villas for the bourgeoisie and the local nobility, with disparate exotic styles including: from Oriental to Arabic, from Pompeii to Gothic to Art Nouveau. If at the end of the nineteenth century, there were 43 houses, some of them did not survive the war and others have been renovated in a different way. Among the most important are Villa Ruggeri and Villa Meridiana (Art Nouveau style), Villa Mellacqua (neo-Gothic style), Villa Sangiovanni (Egyptian style) and Villa Episcopo (Chinese style). Each villa is furnished, according to the custom of those times, with a family chapel, a large garden, a park with pine and palm trees. ...

The interesting Palazzo Liborio Romano, in the main square of Patù, is a neoclassical building connected to the memory of one of the most important people of the Renaissance period in Salento. The palace, built at the behest of Alessandro Romano, father of Liborio, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, had the dual function of a residence to the large Romano family and a symbol of power and wealth. The main facade looks much higher than the rest of the building, reinforcing grandeur of the structure. In 1961, on the centenary of the Unità d'Italia, a plaque to commemorate the exploits of Liborio was placed Next to the main portal. The large courtyard leads to the Doric-style portico streamlined by Tuscan columns. This leads into a circular room with a domed ...

The tower dates back to the sixteenth century, a period of frequent Saracen attacks at the coasts of Salento. For this reason, the structure is characterized by the typical elements of the fortified structures; at the doors and windows are machicolations positioned for defensive purposes. ...

The Ruffano Castle, situated at the highest point of the village, was built in 1626 by Rinaldo Brancaccio on a preexisting medieval fortress. The building is devoid of a defense apparatus, mostly reflecting the architectural standards of a large baronial palace built as a mansion. To characterize the structure is the beautiful lodge, built after Carlo Brancaccio’s desire in the second half of 1600, which connects the baronial palace to the Mother Church; thanks to the "Loggia Brancaccio" the noblemen could attend religious services through a special window that gazed directly inside the sacred edifice. In the early years of the 19th century, Nicola Ferrante, as what Carlo Brancaccio did to the Piazza del Popolo, enriched the front of the castle in Piazza San Francesco with the ...

From the original structure, the same G.C. Vanini described in his work "De admirandis", and where the philosopher spent his teenage years, only the central body remained. Numerous changes were made over the centuries to the original structure. The house consists of an entrance hall with a ribbed vault, which is accessible through a rusticated portal in carparo and embellished with geometric and floral motifs. The atrium leads to the internal rooms, positioned on either side of the entrance, with barrel vaults or edged-Leccese stone vaults. From a staircase set in the rooms, on the left of the entrance hall, is the terrace and the first floor. Annexed to the house was the family chapel, dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, removed in nineteenth century. On either side of the main ...

In the birthplace of Don Tonino Bello, just across from the eighteenth-century Cathedral, sits the Museo Internazionale Mariano d'Arte Contemporanea. The museum houses over 350 Mariana-themed works of art, made by the most important exponents of Italian and International arts including Salvatore Fiume, Ernesto Treccani, Luigi Guerricchio and Alessandro Nastasio. The works possess both the legibility of the sacred and the tendency to experiment of contemporary art.   ...

In the oldest part of the city, in Piazza Castello in Alessano, in front of the Palazzo Ducale, the striking facade of Palazzo San Giovanni can be seen. The façade, characterized by a rusticated "diamond point", was inspired by premium models like the Neapolitan Palazzo Sanseverino (1455-1470), later transformed into the Church of Gesu Nuovo, and like the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, built in 1492, as well as local models such as the San Vincenzo Tower of Presicce, Arcuti Palace and Palazzo della Zecca in Soleto.   These new architectural models, product of a blend of military and residential architecture, seem to be linked to particular clientele of knights and merchants, especially Jewish merchants (the picturesque district of ...

This mansion of the sixteenth century is located in the center of Alessano. The facade has a portal with a round arch and an elegant frame that leans on two pillars with capitals. On the ground floor are four arched windows, while the main floor is animated by a succession of windows with architraves. The peak is composed of a slightly protruding cornice with hanging arches on corbels. The palace now houses the Public Library and the town‘s Pro Loco, used as a cultural center for events and conferences.   ...