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The City
Start in Piazza Sant’Oronzo , the hub of the old town, titled after the first-century bishop of Lecce who went to the lions under Nero. His bronze statue lurches unsteadily from the top of the Colonna di Sant’Oronzo that once stood at the end of the Via Appia in Bríndisi. It resurfaced here in 1666 to honour Oronzo, who was credited with having spared the town from plague ten years earlier. The south side of the piazza is taken up by the weighty remains of the Anfiteatro Romano , which probably dates from the time of Hadrian. In its heyday it seated 20,000 spectators, and it’s still used in summer for concerts and plays. Sadly, though, most of its decorative bas-reliefs, of fighting gladiators and wild beasts, have been removed to the town’s museum for safekeeping, and nowadays it looks rather depleted. The best of Lecce’s Baroque churches are all a short distance from Piazza Sant’Oronzo. The finest, certainly the most ornate, is the Basilica di Santa Croce , just to the north, whose florid facade, the work of the local architect Antonio Zimbalo, took around 150 years to complete, its upper half a riot of decorative garlands and flowers around a central rose window. The Church of Santa Chiara , in the opposite direction on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, is an essential stop; loaded down with ornament, its interior is full of little chapels groaning with garlands and gilt. There’s more Baroque extravagance on offer on Via Vittorio Emanuele, where the Church of Sant’Irene houses the most sumptuous of Lecce’s Baroque altars - lavishly frosted and gilded, and smothered with decoration. Nearby, covering onto Piazza del Duomo, the Seminario holds an impressively ornate well, carved stone masquerading as delicately wrought iron. Next door, the balconied Palazzo Vescovile adjoins the Duomo itself, twelfth century in origin but rebuilt entirely in the mid-seventeenth century by Zimbalo. He tacked on two ornate facades and an enormous five-storeyed campanile that towers 70m above the square. The plain Castello di Carlo V , to the easterly of Piazza Sant’Oronzo, is currently under restoration.
There’s further work by Zimbalo in the Church of San Giovanni Battista (or del Rosario), by the Porta Rudiae in the southwest corner of town - the ornate deception and twisting columns fronting some extremely odd altars, dumpy cherubim diving for cover amid scenes resembling an exploding fruit bowl. But if the Baroque trappings of the town are beginning to pall, there’s the odd relic from other eras too, not least a well-preserved Teatro Romano (currently being restored for use as a concert venue) near the church of Santa Chiara , the only one of its kind to be found in Puglia, with its rows of seats and orchestra floor still remarkably intact. There’s also the fine Romanesque church of Santi Nicolò e Cataldo (entrance through the cemetery gate; generally open mornings) built by the Normans in 1190, with a cool interior that reveals a generous hint of Saracen influence in the arches and the octagonal rounded dome. Little remains of the frescoes that once covered its walls, though an image of St Nicolò can be found on the south side, together with a delicately carved portal. One more stop you should make, near the railway station on the other side of town, is the Museo Provinciale Castromediano (Mon-Fri 9am-1.30pm & 2.30-7.30pm; free), which has finds from the old Roman town, including decorative panels from the amphitheatre and some religious gold- and silverwork.
Tags: altars, anfiteatro romano, baroque churches, bas reliefs, bronze statue, carved stone, extravagance, facades, garlands, hadrian, heyday, Lecce, mid seventeenth century, piazza del duomo, piazza vittorio emanuele, safekeeping, santa chiara, twelfth century, via appia, wild beasts