San Giuseppe between Albania Tarantina and Lizzano

San Marzano di San Giuseppe · Fragagnano · Lizzano · Faggiano · TA

Four towns in the countryside east of Taranto, and a thread that can be seen from two sides. The first is the Albania Tarantina. San Marzano and Faggiano are hamlets of the Albania Tarantina: according to the Municipality of San Marzano populated by soldiers of Scanderbeg between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, according to the Unione Montedoro Greeks and Albanians flowed into Faggiano from the second half of the fifteenth century through much of the seventeenth; and Fragagnano is called historically arbëreshë by a single private source. The second is March: in all four the sources link to San Giuseppe a fire, a table or a patron saint. Lizzano stands outside the first thread, because its Municipality traces its origins to refugees who came from Lecce. The wine theme, hypothesised at the start, holds only in part: vineyards and Primitivo appear, but not as history documented town by town. It is a journey for those who look for minor centres.

The route

Day 1 — San Marzano di San Giuseppe

The journey begins in front of a palazzo that serves as a boundary. According to the Municipality's record, Baron Demetrio Capuzzimati had Palazzo Casalini built in 1530, on the border between the fiefs of Rizzi and San Marzano; and in 1530 itself, the municipal history page recounts, the fief was sold to him, and he encouraged the arrival of Epirote families. The Municipality links the Albanian character of the town to those years: the hamlets of the Albania Tarantina, according to the Municipality, were populated by soldiers of Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. A century later, the Unione Montedoro reports that on 5 December 1630 a surveyor of the Regia Camera della Sommaria valued the property of Demetrio Capuzzimati junior, expropriated for debts. Of the drawbridge mentioned in 1633 nothing remains; what remain are the loggia, the arches and a covered passage above the main door leading to the choir of the church of San Gennaro, with the coat of arms of the last marquis Bonelli. According to Montedoro the palazzo is today the seat of the Municipality. The church of San Carlo Borromeo, on the Corso, was probably built in the eighteenth century on the site of a cult of Santa Venera; the Municipality recalls a visitation of 1578 to the original church, served in the Greek rite. Montedoro recalls that the town's Albanian language is protected by the law on linguistic minorities, and points out the bust of Skanderbeg and the “fumaru”, an old chimney pot near the Palazzo Marchesale. For the patron saint's feast, on 18-19 March, Montedoro describes the procession of the firewood, with horse-drawn carts and groups in Albanian costume, which ends in the Zjarre i Madhe, the Great Bonfire of the night between 18 and 19 March: according to Montedoro the procession of the firewood has been held since 1866, the same year in which, according to the Municipality, the mayor Francesco Paolo Cavallo added “di San Giuseppe” to the name to distinguish it from its namesakes. The sources do not say whether the two facts are linked. The next day goes down below the level of the countryside.

Day 2 — The lama delle Grazie and Fragagnano

The sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie, according to the Unione Montedoro, lies in contrada Grotte, inside a karst lama about five metres deep, with the crypt at an altitude of 102.3 metres at the point where two ravines join in a Y. The Municipality recounts that the caves of the gravina were tombs in the late Bronze Age and underground dwellings in the Early Middle Ages; the nucleus of the sanctuary, according to Montedoro, is a rock church of San Giorgio: a quadrangular hypogeum with three entrances and a monumental staircase. In the sanctuary Montedoro points out frescoes of San Giorgio and Santa Barbara and a Virgin and Child held to be miraculous, of which originally only the faces were visible; on the vault, a crowned Virgin of the seventeenth century. The lama lies within the Parco naturale regionale Terra delle Gravine, established in 2005, where Montedoro notes the Macedonian oak, the holm oak and the lesser kestrel. At Christmas, in the same lama, a living nativity scene is staged.

Fragagnano receives few lines here, because its Municipality's website could not be consulted and everything comes from private sources to be re-checked. The publication pugliain.net describes a countryside of small plots between dry-stone walls, with vineyards of primitivo and malvasia nera, and dates to 1774 the Chiesa Madre dell'Immacolata, commissioned by the Dell'Antoglietta feudal lords on the ruins of a church destroyed by the earthquake of 1770. The same source recalls in March the “Rito dei Santi”, with tables for the poor linked to San Giuseppe. A castles website notes on the cornice of the Palazzo Baronale a statue of Sant'Irene above the Dell'Antoglietta coat of arms. The March tables return the next day.

Day 3 — Lizzano

The Municipality describes the Palazzo Marchesale “at the foot of the knoll on which the town gradually settles”. On the ground floor it housed the olive press, the mill, the granary, the storerooms and the stables. The town's low houses, the Municipality writes, assert “the small domain typical of peasant civilisation”. The origins, according to the municipal Cenni storici, are different from those of the Albanian hamlets: in the early thirteenth century refugees from Lecce, fleeing the invasions of William I, obtained from Countess Albiria, daughter of Queen Sibilla, permission to settle in the territories near Pulsano; in dialect and traditions, the Municipality notes, the town has many similarities with the Lecce area. The first official source is an Angevin register of 1272. The Chiesa del Rosario was built in 1562 with the De Raho coat of arms; the municipal record recalls the supporting arches of the Norman castle, built after the Nardò earthquake of 1743. The statue of San Gaetano was taken to the Chiesa del Crocifisso in 1955, after the collapse of the vault of the Matrice. The convent of San Pasquale, commissioned by the Chyurlia marquises, was suppressed in 1811 and in 1866. In March 2026 the Municipality announced the Tavole di San Giuseppe (18 March) and, on the 21st, a table with tasting and the lighting of the bonfire. The following day leaves the town towards San Crispieri.

Day 4 — San Crispieri and Faggiano

On the road from Lizzano, according to the Municipality of Faggiano, the church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli is partly collapsed and under restoration; Montedoro dates it to 1601 and recalls pilgrimages there on the first Tuesday of March. At San Crispieri, the castle, built at the end of the sixteenth century and completed in the second decade of the seventeenth, is a private building with unknown access. In Faggiano the reason is religious: according to Montedoro on 16 April 1557 the town's archpriest received the mandate of Vicar General for the Greeks and Albanians of Puglia and Abruzzo, and Faggiano became the “religious capital of the Greek rite” until the end of the eighteenth century. In the Chiesa Madre dell'Assunta, attested in 1578 and restored in 1760, the Municipality points to the Greek rite maintained throughout the 18th century and a floor of tombstones. The detail that remains is an absence: the Cripta di San Nicola, a Basilian hermitage probably of the 11th century, was found on 11 September 1926 while digging the foundations of a house; in 1955 the surviving frescoes were detached and the hypogeum filled in, and San Teodoro, San Giorgio and the other saints are today, according to Montedoro, in the Pinacoteca Metropolitana di Bari. The patron saint, here, is still San Giuseppe.

DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 15 defects corrected · not approved