Alezio · Parabita · Matino · Casarano · LE
Four neighbouring municipalities in the province of Lecce, which a 2015 map guide joined in a 15 km route called “Tracce mariane”. The name holds at three stops out of four: in Alezio the sanctuary of the Madonna della Lizza, in Parabita the basilica of Maria Santissima della Coltura, in Casarano the church of Santa Maria della Croce, known as Casaranello. In Matino the sources consulted do not point to a Marian site, and the town comes in for its olive presses carved into the rock and for the Palazzo Marchesale Del Tufo. The most solid thread, however, leads to Gallipoli: the people of Gallipoli fleeing the Angevins took refuge in Alezio, and at Casaranello an inscription recalls a bishop of Gallipoli. It is a short journey, for those who look at frescoes and mosaics with patience and accept that opening times and visits remain to be checked.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Alezio
The sanctuary of the Madonna della Lizza stands on the hill, at the highest point of the town, and according to the FAI's page it occupies a site where Messapian and Roman temples once stood. In front of the entrance is a pronaos with a tower, which the same page says was built for defence and as a lookout over the nearby coast; in the forecourt a stele bears a cross that the FAI calls Templar. Inside, beneath the trusses of the single nave of a Latin-cross plan, the frescoes range, according to the FAI, from the 10th to the 16th century: in the south transept look for the Basilian one known as “il volto greco”, and in the church the baptismal font carved in 1588 by Vespasiano Genuino. The FAI finds the reason for this church's importance in Gallipoli: in the summer of 1268 Charles I of Anjou besieged the town, which surrendered the following April, and the people of Gallipoli, punished for their loyalty to the Swabians, took refuge here; and later the church was enlarged and raised to an episcopal see. The place is older still. Wikipedia recalls that the Tabula Peutingeriana marks Baletium as a stop on the Via Traiana, and that the town, called Villa Picciotti from the eighteenth century, took back its ancient name in 1873. In via Monte d'Elia there is a necropolis of the 6th century BC: in 2023 a local news outlet announced its reopening as a park, with excavations resumed after about thirty years and about 200,000 euros of public funds from the GAL Terra d'Arneo. Whether it is open today the sources consulted do not say, just as they do not give the opening times of the Museo Civico Messapico, which Wikipedia says was inaugurated in 1982. The next day, in our proposal, we move on to two towns that almost merge.
Day 2 — Parabita and Matino
A 2022 act of the Comune of Matino, published on the Regione Puglia portal, describes Matino and Parabita as adjacent, practically a single built-up area: the day crosses a boundary that can hardly be seen. About Parabita the admitted sources say almost nothing, and the town gets only a few lines: there is the basilica of Maria Santissima della Coltura, patron of the town according to Wikipedia.
Matino, according to the national portal italia.it, lies on the western slope of southern Salento, among broad plots planted with olives and vines. Beneath the historic centre open underground olive presses carved into the limestone rock, and in the narrow alleys votive niches remain. The Arco della Pietà is, according to italia.it, a sort of entrance gate to the town. The Palazzo Marchesale Del Tufo houses the town council chamber and the contemporary art museum MACMA, and in its stables preserves frescoes with the names of thoroughbred horses written on the walls. The Chiesa Matrice, dedicated to San Giorgio, has eight altars in faux marble and Baroque decoration. The municipal act adds that Matino bears the title of “città dell'arte e della musica”. Dates and historical events of the town are not found in the sources consulted, and here the account stops. The next day we continue towards a church that the sources consulted probably link to Gallipoli.
Day 3 — Casarano
Casaranello announces itself with a sober façade: a lunette portal, a late-medieval rose window, the statues of Saints Lucia and Caterina, and on the south arm of the transept a bell gable resulting from later alterations. The meaning of the day lies above. In the dome a starry sky with a golden cross; in the vault of the bema pears, grapes, ducks, a hare and a cockerel; at the crown the tesserae arranged like a peacock's tail, the opus pavonaceum. The website of the Associazione ArcheoCasarano compares these mosaics with the baptistery of Naples, the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna and the Rotunda of San Giorgio in Thessaloniki. When the church was built is debated, and the sources consulted give different dates: here we do not choose one. According to the same page it was built with blocks cut specially, without reused stones, with three naves and a projecting rectangular apse, and probably stood in the Massa Callipolitana, later remaining in the diocese of Gallipoli. Its function is also uncertain: a baptismal church, or the keeper of a relic of the Cross, a hypothesis that would explain the cross in the dome and the dedication. The Gallipoli thread, in our reading, returns on the walls. The first fresco cycle, from the late 10th century, bears Greek inscriptions, and the one on the Virgin and Child recalls the consecration of the church of the Theotokos in the presence of a bishop of Gallipoli; in the apse a diptych shows the donors Giorgio and Demetrio.
The walls are a layered archive: of the 12th-century Passion cycle four scenes remain, among them the Crucifixion and the Kiss of Judas; in the thirteenth century the martyrdom of Saints Caterina and Margherita was painted; a diptych of Saints Eligio and Antonio abate is dated 1538; a Madonna and Child bears the date 1643. Then came decay and improper uses, the rediscovery by the scholar Haseloff at the beginning of the twentieth century and the restorations from 1971 to 1983. In 2016 the Ministry of Economic Development dedicated an ordinary stamp to it. Guided visits are by reservation only, with times that change according to the season. The journey, in our proposal, ends beneath that starry dome, the last of the route's three churches of Mary.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 10 defects corrected · not approved