Lizzanello

Two scholars have argued about where this town comes from, and one of the two was born in it. Giacomo Arditi traces it to the sack of Lecce carried out by Otto IV of Saxony in 1210: the refugees who escaped the sack are said to have founded a new town and called it Licyanellus, that is Little Lecce — and the argument for it is the coat of arms of Lizzanello, which resembles that of the provincial capital. Cosimo De Giorgi, who was from Lizzanello, held instead that the town was born of the destruction of three medieval casali nearby, Cigliano, Fornello and Scaranzano. The land was lived on long before that: until a few decades ago megalithic monuments were still standing in the fields around. From the thirteen hundreds the fief passed from hand to hand: Cecilia Marescallo, a noblewoman of Lecce, held it until 1335; the De Bilancis for about half a century; then it went into the county of Lecce and belonged to Maria d'Enghien, who in 1436 sold it to the Paladini — who kept it for more than two hundred years — and after them came the D'Afflitto, the Chiurlia and the Lotti.

The church of San Lorenzo Nuovo has been many things. It was built in the fifteen hundreds and enlarged in the sixteen hundreds, and on that same occasion its terraces were armed with arrow slits and stone-throwers: for a while it was a fortress. The outer door of the left transept was made in 1651, and the two uprights of its frame are monolithic blocks that may very well be ancient menhirs — a prehistoric standing stone set to serve as a doorpost. In the bell-gable, since 1808, hangs a bell they call the gallipolina, cast at Gallipoli, which used to adorn the basilica of Santa Croce at Lecce. The church's name too is recent: a cleaning of the entrance door brought to light an epigraph of 1547 showing that it was dedicated to Santa Maria della Pietà; it became San Lorenzo Nuovo only in the eighteen hundreds, when the old Romanesque church of San Lorenzo Vecchio fell into ruin, and its remains still lie outside the built-up area. Inside there are six side altars and the sepulchral monument of Giorgio Antonio Paladini, lord of Lizzanello and Melendugno. And there were five paintings: four attributed to Oronzo Tiso and one, the best, a martyrdom of San Lorenzo attributed to Pacecco De Rosa. All five were stolen. Only the Pacecco has come back.