Caprarica di Lecce, la porta della Grecìa che affaccia sul Kalòs

Marco Laggetta 28 December 2022

Caprarica di Lecce is located in central-eastern Salento, on the north-eastern side of the Serra di Galugnano, at the gates of Grecìa Salentina. Its territory has been inhabited since the Bronze Age as evidenced by the presence of the Ussano menhir. In the Byzantine era, Caprarica hosted a settlement of Basilians, who built a necropolis and a church of which some frescoes are partly preserved. In the 13th century it was part of the County of Lecce and the Principality of Taranto, governed by the Norman Tancredi, whose successors maintained possession of the fiefdom until 1463. At the time, Caprarica already had its own municipal system and territorial autonomy. In 1480, refugees from nearby Roca, sacked by the Turks and razed to the ground, flowed there. Subsequently, first the Orsini del Balzo, then the Adorno and finally the Giustiniani governed the estate.

The scholar Giacomo Arditi claims that the name derives from capra-ricca; in fact in the past the main activity carried out by its inhabitants was goat breeding and milk production.

Worth a visit are the Parish Church of San Nicola Vescovo and that of the SS. Crocifisso, which houses a breathing Christ in wood and papier-mâché of the Venetian school, both from the eighteenth century, as well as the Chapel of the Madonna del Carmine, which annexed the Carmelite convent, from the second half of the sixteenth century.

Also worthy of note is the Palazzo Marchesale, built by the Giustiniani marquises in the 17th and 18th centuries on an initial fortified structure dating back to the Norman period (12th century) of which one of the two towers remains, still visible in the palace garden.

Finally, in Caprarica di Lecce, on the Serra di Galugnano, in the land of megaliths, where one of the largest protohistoric settlements in the area stood, you will find Kalòs, the Archeodromo del Salento, the largest open-air museum in Italy, which tells the story of three thousand years of history.

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Caprarica di Lecce, the door of Grecìa overlooking the Kalòs

Written by Marco Laggetta

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Caprarica di Lecce, the door of Grecìa overlooking the Kalòs

Written by Marco Laggetta

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