Lecce also known as the capital of the Baroque style, "the Florence of Puglia" rich in incredibly beautiful monuments. A walk in the streets of the city centre will be enough to admire many majestic sites. In these Baroque-style Churches there are many bas-reliefs, made of a particulary soft local stone known as "tufo".
Lecce baroque features differently than other countries. Lecce baroque complies with roman churches structures superimposed with triumphs of fruit and flowers, exotical animals and ribbons, always characterized by a taste for details and ornaments admiringly astonishing visitors.
Lecce baroque, abounding in churches and buildings, turns the town centre into a XVIIth century theater setting, interrupted here and there by very modern buildings. St. Matthew's, the Cathedral, St. Mary's of the Rosary, St. Mary's of the Graces, St. Clare's, the Holy Cross Basilica and the Governm ent Building (an ex-Celestine Convent), the Episcopal Seminary Palace, are the masterpieces of this style that lasted from the end of the XVIth century to the beginning of the XVIIIth. The Holy Cross Basilica marks the apex of Lecce Baroque.
The Piazza Duomo monumental setting surprised the visitors in an admored and singular way owing to the superposition of a large sequence of loggias and arches divided by half-columns, running all along the first floor.
A sumptuous baroque mantle covers the front of the suggestive St. Nicolò and Cataldo's Church in the background of a cypress avenue in Lecce Churchyard.
St. Oronzo's Square, the Very heart of the town, there are other renowned monuments: the Roman Amphitheater, the Historical Seat, the Patron's Column. The partly brought-to-light Roman Amphitheater is the summertime seat of all kind performances.
