Lecce is a city of about 95,000 inhabitants, with an ancient and important history and a very lively artistic and cultural ferment. The first Illyrian populations arrived already in the third millennium BC but a legend says that the city was born around 1200 BC by Malennio, immediately after the destruction of Troy.
Rome conquered it in the 3rd century BC, together with the nearby city of Rudiae (the city where the poet Quintus Ennius was born, who in the Annals sang of six centuries of Roman history, starting from the landing of Aeneas, who coincidentally landed in nearby Porto Badisco).
It will be one of the first Italian cities to convert to Christianity, through the consul Publius Orontius, (the future Saint Oronzo), the first evangelizer and bishop of Lecce.
The city was sacked in 549 by the Ostrogoth king Totila, while from the 6th century onwards it was ruled by the Saracens, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Hungarians and the Slavs.
With the Norman conquest, Lecce returned to the old splendor it had achieved in the Roman period. It became an important commercial center, and extended its territory until it became the capital of Salento. Starting with Goffredo, the Normans established their court in Lecce, and here in fact the last Norman king, Tancredi, son of Roger III, was born. The County of Lecce was succeeded by the Swabians and the Angevins.
From 1463 Lecce fell under the domination of the Aragonese, acquiring more and more importance until it became one of the richest and most culturally lively Mediterranean cities. In this period it developed in commercial traffic with Florentine, Venetian, Greek, Genoese, Albanian merchants and was an important cultural center.
Emperor Charles V defended the city with a new wall, a castle and the current Porta Napoli.
In 1630 many religious structures were built in the typical style of those years of Counter-Reformation, that is, in Baroque style. A terrible plague epidemic struck Lecce in 1656, there were thousands of victims and according to tradition the epidemic was calmed by the intervention of Sant'Oronzo, who from that moment became the patron saint of the city replacing Santa Irene.
After a brief Austrian domination at the beginning of the 18th century, power was managed by the Lecce nobility, to then arrive in 1821 at the Carbonari uprisings against the Austrians, forming a provisional government in 1848, participating in the liberal movement of the South.
Maccheroni Pasta
Taralli all'Uvetta e Cipolla
Amore DI Puglia Pillow
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