Towns born from lost hamlets

Surbo · Trepuzzi · Squinzano · Novoli · Campi Salentina · LE

Five centres in the province of Lecce that the sources describe in a similar way: almost all are born from the end of other settlements. Trepuzzi grew with the inhabitants of abandoned villages, Squinzano from the disappearance of nearby hamlets, Campi Salentina after the destruction of isolated hamlets, Novoli, according to a historian cited by the Municipality, from the transfer of the inhabitants of Porziano; and Surbo, according to its Municipality, was born from the casale d'Aurio, of which a church remains on the border with Lecce. It is a journey for those who read a town from the plan of its streets and the dates of its fiefs. The thread holds unevenly: for Trepuzzi the material is scant, and we say so. The order of the stops and the division into days are our proposal.

The route

Day 1 — Surbo and Trepuzzi

We set off from a road: on one side the church of Santa Maria d'Aurio, on the other the Torre dei Cavallari. According to the Municipality of Surbo it is precisely that carriageway that marks the border between Surbo and Lecce: the church stands in the territory of Lecce, but it is the historic core of the hamlet from which Surbo was born, “the last visible testimony” of Aurio. The tower, of the 16th century, was part, according to the Municipality, of a defensive system that linked coastal towers and fortified masserie. A record by the association Famiglie della Visitazione describes the gabled façade with hanging arches, the portal with two column-bearing lions, the three naves on eight columns, and recalls a detail that weighs: the wooden polyptych by Bartolomeo Vivarini remained in the church until 1928, and three of its panels are today in the Pinacoteca provinciale di Bari. The same record indicates as the first evidence of the place the diploma of 1180 with which Tancredi d'Altavilla donated, among other lands, the territory of Aurio to the Lecce church of Santi Niccolò e Cataldo. Surbo proper, according to the Ministry of Culture's record, is a hamlet of the county of Lecce mentioned from the end of the 12th century, one of the centres arranged in a semicircle around the provincial capital, which grew above all in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the Municipality dates the Matrice of Santa Maria del Popolo to the 13th-14th century. Underfoot there is the stone: a geological study places Surbo, with Novoli, among the extraction areas of piromafo, a variety of the pietra leccese.

Trepuzzi has fewer lines because the sources give fewer about it. The ministerial record places it on a plateau, attested from 1291 in the County of Lecce, and explains its shape: the town grew around Largo Pozze with the inhabitants of the nearby villages abandoned between the 13th and 14th centuries, from the seventeenth century it stretched towards the Chiesa Nuova, and today it lies between the statale Adriatica, which cuts through the oldest core, and the railway. A fief of the Acquaviva, in 1753 it was bought by Duke Francesco Carignani, the same surname as the feudal lords of Novoli from 1712; the sources read do not say whether it is the same family. Trepuzzi's seaside, the Municipality says, is Casalabate, and it is towards the Casalabate road that, in our proposal, we go the next day.

Day 2 — Squinzano and Santa Maria di Cerrate

Squinzano is read from its square. The Ministry of Culture's record describes a main axis, narrow alleys with courtyard houses and a large square that connects the old core to a Franciscan convent; the baronial palace no longer exists, and the town hall stands on its site. Two dates count: in 1274 Squinzano is documented as a hamlet dependent on Lecce, born from the disappearance of nearby hamlets; from 1560 it is a demesne town, and the record links to that change a great building expansion. Wikipedia recalls that its name is also that of a wine DOC, red and rosé, mainly from Negroamaro.

Then we go out, along the provincial road between Squinzano and Casalabate, where the FAI places the address of the Abbazia di Santa Maria di Cerrate. A legend, which finestresullarte.info reports as such, has it born from a doe pursued by Tancredi; the same publication traces it historically to the early 12th century, mentioned in a deed of 1133 and in a manuscript finished in 1154. The later history explains what can be seen: in 1531 it passed to the Ospedale degli Incurabili of Naples and the complex also became a masseria with olive presses; in 1711 it was abandoned because of pirate raids; between 1965 and 1967 the Province of Lecce restored it with the architect Franco Minissi, and in 1967 the bell tower collapsed; since 2012 it has been under a thirty-year concession to the FAI. According to the Famiglie della Visitazione record the gabled façade has a rose window and a portal with high reliefs of the Baptism, the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi, the side portico has twenty-four paired columns with capitals bearing animal figures, and some detached frescoes are in the adjoining museum. A FAI visit, “Cerrate: la masseria”, took visitors into the Casa del Massaro, the agricultural side of the place: the countryside is the theme of the next day.

Day 3 — Novoli and Campi Salentina

In Novoli it is best to start from a small church, the Immacolata, which the Municipality considers probably the first parish church: the fresco of the Madonna enthroned with the Child, Byzantine in style, discovered in 1865, has become the civic coat of arms. The Municipality also recounts why the town is here: according to the historian G. Marciano the inhabitants of the hamlet of Porziano, on the road to Veglie, left a marshy site and moved to where three churches already existed. Then came the feudal lords. Paolo Mattei bought half of the fief on 26 June 1520 and built the baronial palace; Filippo I Mattei in 1551 had the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the church of Sant'Onofrio, the family tomb, built; in 1700 Alessandro III added a fountain with an inscription on the palace terrace. From 1712 to 1806 the fief belonged to the Carignani. Then there is the Fòcara: according to italia.it a bonfire about 25 metres high and 20 in diameter, built with bundles of vine shoots from pruning, lit on 16 January with fireworks and left to burn all night. The Foundation manages it as “Focara di Sant'Antonio” and has the Regione Puglia among its founding members, and “Fòcara di Novoli” is a registered collective trademark.

The centre of Campi, according to the Ministry's record, took shape in the 10th century. The same record has it born after the Saracens destroyed some isolated hamlets, links the castle to Frederick II around 1220 and recalls the Maremonte as feudal lords between the 14th and 15th centuries. The square holds church and castle together, and the seventeenth-century Palazzo Marchesale stands on an earlier castle. Until 1864 the town was called simply Campi. Italia.it calls it the “Granary of Terra d'Otranto” and points out the Chiesa Madre di Santa Maria delle Grazie on the square, Casa Prato with the Historical Archive and the Municipal Library, and two menhirs, Candido and Sperti. The FAI describes the Madonna dell'Alto, a place inhabited at least since late antiquity, with reused columns and capitals and a devotion to the Madonna del Latte that made it a focal point for the neighbouring towns. The same FAI places Campi, with Trepuzzi, Squinzano and Novoli, in the Valle della Cupa, the karst depression north-west of Lecce that Cosimo de Giorgi, at the end of the nineteenth century, called “A sea of greenery”: on that word, in our proposal, the journey closes.

DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 10 defects corrected · not approved