Giurdignano · Giuggianello · Minervino di Lecce · Cannole · Palmariggi · LE
Five municipalities of the province of Lecce and a thread that the sources support only in part: the standing stones and the stone tables of Salento prehistory. For Giurdignano, Giuggianello and Minervino di Lecce the theme rests on Ministry of Culture records that describe menhirs and dolmens, with measurements and dates; for Palmariggi on a single menhir known from private sources; for Cannole on nothing, and there the journey changes subject and follows the language and a route that a 2015 map-guide titled “Devozione dei pellegrini”. In our proposal it is a route to be done partly on foot among olive groves and country lanes to see stones, and to live with many open questions: of no menhir in the group can the records say the age with certainty. The order of the stages and the division into days are our own proposal.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Giurdignano
The journey begins in a small square that bears the name of the stone that occupies it: the Menhir di San Vincenzo, in “Piazzetta del Menhir”, is a monolith of about 3.45 metres with a section of 45 by 32 centimetres, set into the outcropping rock. The Ministry of Culture record places it in the group of the “pietrefitte salentine” and honestly reports the scholars' disagreement: for some they are pre-protohistoric stones later Christianised, for others not earlier than the early Middle Ages, and the chronology remains “not determinable”. This can also be seen in the names, according to a reading of ours: the stones bear saints' names, and one has a carved cross, another a small niche with sacred images. The Menhir di San Paolo, just outside the town on a country lane, is about 2.26 metres high; around it, the record says, about ten trapezoidal pits, “perhaps” a small necropolis, and on its side a small niche with heavily retouched images in which the Madonna and San Paolo stand beside a spider, an allusion to protection from the bite of the taranta. A page on the website of the Comune of Uggiano la Chiesa devoted to Casamassella links that cult to the healing of the tarantate. The third monolith, that of the Madonna di Costantinopoli, stands at a three-way junction on the outskirts towards Uggiano and Casamassella and bears a small cross carved on its north side. The italia.it portal calls Giurdignano “Giardino megalitico d'Italia”. Underground there is another story: the same site dates to 1518 the underground olive press known as Trappitello del Duca, which produced oil until 1940 and which the Comune of Giurdignano bought in 2000, opening it to the public; around 1870 there were four underground olive presses in the territory of Giurdignano. At the boundary with Giuggianello the next day begins.
Day 2 — Giuggianello and Minervino di Lecce
The Dolmen Stabile, also called Quattromacine, stands in the plot from which it takes its name, in the territory of Giuggianello but, according to the ministerial record, on the boundary with Giurdignano. Here there is a date: Middle Bronze Age, ritual use in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The capstone rests on nine supports, two monolithic and seven made of stacked stones, and is crossed by a groove that converges in a central cup-mark; the chamber is oriented south-south-east. In the same municipality the Ministry's database describes the Massi della Vecchia, three monoliths called “Lu letto te la vecchia”, “lu furticeddhu”, that is, the spindle, and “Piede di Ercole”, which oral tradition links to a witch guarding a treasure: a tale to be read as a tale, because the record itself cannot date the stones. The town has an old nucleus that the record traces back to the 11th century, at 79 metres above sea level and about 36 km south-east of Lecce; the mother church of Sant'Antonio Abate shows a Baroque façade in pietra leccese “left unfinished for lack of financial means”. Giuggianello is also one of the ten municipalities of the Parco dei Paduli, where, according to another Ministry record, the channels carry the waters towards the vore, natural karst cavities, and the casedde are used above all in summer. In the afternoon, in our proposal, we move on to Minervino: the Dolmen Li Scusi stands in an olive grove along provincial road 56, halfway between the town and Uggiano la Chiesa. The ministerial record assigns it to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC by analogy with the Maltese dolmens; it has a single cell without a corridor, a capstone on eight uprights and measures 1.10 by 3.80 by 2.45 metres. The detail to look for is bureaucratic: the protection order that safeguards it is dated 12 November 1910, under the law of 1909. Wikipedia adds a Chiesa Madre from the mid-sixteenth century with carved portals and a rose window, and in the frazione of Cocumola Messapian pits for grain: data to be re-verified. The next day the stones thin out.
Day 3 — Cannole and Palmariggi
At Cannole the open sources know neither dolmens nor menhirs, and it is best to say so. What the open sources preserve is a piece of information about the language: according to the Comune of Cutrofiano, at the beginning of the nineteenth century Cannole was among the thirteen towns of Terra d'Otranto, the Decatría Choría, that preserved Greek language and traditions. Wikipedia places it 29 km south-east of Lecce and gives as patron San Vincenzo Ferreri, celebrated on 5 April. Through here passed the route that a 2015 map-guide published on dms.puglia.it called “Devozione dei pellegrini”, from Carpignano Salentino to Palmariggi. Palmariggi too must be told in a few lines, all from private sources: Wikipedia recalls a fifteenth-century Aragonese castle of which two towers remain and the mother church of San Luca Evangelista, rebuilt after 1777; the hiking portal Komoot describes the Menhir di Montevergine, about 1.90 metres high and restored several times, next to the sanctuary of the Madonna di Montevergine. It is the last standing stone of the journey. From Palmariggi the map-guide's second route, “Alle porte d'Oriente”, continued towards Otranto: in our proposal the journey ends here, with that road in sight.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 9 defects corrected · not approved