Lequile

The mother church of Lequile, dedicated to the Assumption, was rebuilt in 1746, probably to a design by Mauro Manieri, and has been waiting to be finished ever since: the front is incomplete, without its crowning fastigium, and in the upper order two niches have remained empty. The bell tower, of five storeys, was only completed in 1896 by the architect Russo of San Cesario, while its base and first floor had been there since the eighteenth century. Inside, on the other hand, nothing is missing: six chapels with richly decorated altars, two of them attributed to Manieri himself, and a canvas of the Immaculate Virgin with Saints Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena traced to the hand of Gian Domenico Catalano of Gallipoli.

Another thing in Lequile bears the name of another town: the runways of the military airport that everyone calls the airport of Galatina in fact lie within the territory of the comune of Lequile. The village is in the Valle della Cupa, the great karst depression that surrounds Lecce, five kilometres from the provincial capital, and its territory is full of masserie, today nearly all uninhabited. The name is debated: a recent study traces it to the expression ad leucum, that is to a lucus, a bright clearing, or to a lacus, a clear pool of water; local tradition prefers the centurion Leculo, who is said to have built a villa here around which the village grew — and it is to him that the legionary eagle alludes on the coat of arms granted in 2013. In 2009, finally, the two old parishes of Lequile and of the hamlet of Dragoni were suppressed and joined into a single one, dedicated to the Holy Spirit.