The patron saint of Gallipoli is Saint Sebastian, celebrated on 20 January: the town venerates him together with Saint Agatha, both named as Gallipoli's patrons, whose silver busts are kept in the town's diocesan museum, open since 2004 and rich in paintings, treasures and ecclesiastical vestments from the 17th and 18th centuries. Their stone statues, together with those of Saint Faustus, Saint Marina and Saint Teresa of Avila, also adorn the niches of the co-cathedral basilica of Sant'Agata, a 17th-century Baroque Latin-cross building, erected on the site of a Romanesque chapel dedicated to Saint John Chrysostom, at the highest and most central point of the island on which the old town stands.
Gallipoli also venerates with particular intensity Saint Christina of Bolsena, whose statue is kept in a small church near the fishing harbour, built in 1607: according to legend, it was she who freed the town from the cholera epidemic that struck it in 1867, which is why solemn celebrations are held in her honour every year. In 1741 King Charles of Bourbon of Naples established in Gallipoli the Consolato di Mare, a maritime court that regulated port trade, followed in 1765 by the establishment of the Fiera del Canneto fair.
