Tricase · Andrano · Tiggiano · Corsano · Specchia · LE
Five municipalities in the province of Lecce; four, Tricase, Andrano, Tiggiano and Corsano, are among the municipalities of the Parco naturale regionale Costa Otranto - Santa Maria di Leuca e Bosco di Tricase. The thread that the sources read support is that of defence: a mother church damaged by the Turks in 1480, a castle perhaps adapted in those years according to a private portal, coastal towers built under Spanish rule and connected by sight one to another. The theme hypothesised at the start, “oil and coast”, holds only in part: oil is mentioned only by the hypogeal oil mills of Corsano and of Specchia, and for Specchia only by private sources or the GAL; for Andrano the municipal pages on the sites could not be opened, and there the account becomes shorter. It is a journey for those who read villages from their dated stones.
At a glance
Duration. 4 days.
The route
Day 1 — Tricase, the palace and the square
You begin at Piazza Pisanelli, where the Municipality has its seat in the Palazzo Gallone. According to the municipal page the building joins a Torre and a Torrione with structures typical of the 14th century to a central block built in 1661 by Stefano II Gallone, first prince of Tricase; the throne room measures 24.30 by 11.70 metres, and the Municipality acquired the palace in the 1950s. The Touring Club and the GAL describe Tricase as born from the union of three hamlets; for the Touring, around a shared defensive core. The Chiesa Matrice, in our reading, tells of the same need through dates. The Municipality's record lists the damage to the first parish church: the Turks in 1480, the soldiers of the Count of Lecce in 1495, the Venetians in 1528. After the collapse came a new church in 1581; the enlargement works begun in 1763 led to the opening of 24 July 1784, with Adriano Preite of Copertino as architect. Inside, the pulpit carved in 1795 by Raffaele Monteanni of Lequile; in the crypt, the remains of Cardinal Giovanni Panico, a native of Tricase. On the same square stands San Domenico, a church completed in 1688, and the monument to Giuseppe Pisanelli, sculpted by Antonio Bortone of Ruffano. The municipal page recalls that via del Tempio joined Porta Terra, which still exists, to Porta Napoli, of which no trace remains. The next day you head out towards the districts and the countryside.
Day 2 — The surroundings of Tricase and Andrano
Along the old road towards Tricase Porto stands a rural church on an octagonal plan, the Madonna di Costantinopoli, built in 1684 on the initiative of the family of Jacopo Francesco Arborio Gattinara, Marquis of San Martino; today it is walled up and deconsecrated, and the popular name of “Chiesa dei Diavoli” comes, the Municipality says, from a legend. The two castles that follow are private places, according to the Municipality. At Tutino the castle of the Trane was built in 1580 by Don Luigi Trane, according to the inscription on the façade reported by the Municipality; at Depressa the castle of the Winspeare has a 14th-century core and two square towers of 1500, and was long used as a masseria. Between the fiefs of Tricase and Andrano remain ruins and scattered stones of the abbey of Santa Maria de Amito, a community of Italo-Greek monks of which, the municipal page admits, little is known. Andrano, according to its own Municipality, has scant records: the oldest documents come from the deeds of the Angevin chancery, and among the feudal lords appear the Saraceno in 1466 and the Spinola in 1606. The private portal museionline describes the Spinola-Caracciolo castle with origins in the 13th century and adaptations in the 15th under the Saraceno, perhaps hastened after the Turkish invasion of Otranto in 1480. According to the Park Authority the park consortium, active since 2008, has its seat in the castle. It is there that you go the next day, towards the towers.
Day 3 — Tiggiano and Corsano
At Tiggiano the Ministry of Culture's record attests the hamlet from 1270, dependent on the County of Alessano, between the Serra del Cianci, 201 metres, and the Adriatic coast; the Serafini were its barons from 1640, with the surname Sauli from 1670. Their Palazzo Baronale is today the town hall and houses on the ground floor the Museo storico dell'arte contadina, inaugurated on 7 June 2008, with the sections “La casa” and “Le botteghe”; beside it, a wood of about 2.18 hectares of maquis with pines, oaks and holm oaks. The church of Sant'Ippazio, from the mid-18th century, has a portal dated 1758 and a pediment of 1791 with the statue of the saint. At the Oratorio di San Michele, on 2 January 2001, a Renaissance fresco of the saint appeared behind the canvas. Then the coast. The municipal page on Torre Nasparo explains the reason for these towers: after the battle of Cerignola of 1503 came Spanish rule, and with it towers that communicated with smoke signals by day and bonfires by night. Nasparo was built in 1565 by order of the Duke of Alcalà, and in 1777 it was already entrusted to invalids, partly collapsed. To the south it communicated with Torre Specchia Grande, at Corsano, which the ministerial record dates to 1563 and says was probably built by the Universitas of the village: a document of 21 March 1584 attests the payment of 217 ducats. In 1842 the customs guard used it, in the two world wars it was an outpost; restored in 2016, in 2024 it was a tourist reception centre. The GAL adds that at Corsano the Greek rite lasted until the 14th century, that the municipality's coast extends for about 4 km, with the Marina di Novaglie, and that in the historic centre there are hypogeal oil mills. It is the bridge to the last day.
Day 4 — Specchia
At Specchia oil enters the account more than elsewhere, but from unofficial sources: the Municipality's website could not be opened. The Touring Club describes hypogeal oil mills built between the 15th and the 19th century, which can be visited along an almost entirely underground route, and the website of the Borghi più belli d'Italia, to whose club the village belongs, places it on the Strada dell'Olio “Jonica - Antica Terra d'Otranto”. Above, the Castello Risolo, of the 16th century for the Touring, with a 17th-century portal according to the GAL. The detail is in the church of the Francescani Neri: the chapel of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria, which the GAL says was built in 1532 by the Meriglia family, has vaults with the Prophets and, on the walls, a Cumaean Sibyl with verses by Virgil; Touring and Borghi point out a crypt on 36 small columns. Outside the town, in the countryside towards Miggiano, the church of Sant'Eufemia has Byzantine origins and was probably, for the GAL, the first sacred place of the village. The journey, in our proposal, ends here.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 7 defects corrected · not approved