Soleto · Corigliano d'Otranto · Melpignano · Castrignano de' Greci · Carpignano Salentino · LE
It is a journey through five towns of the province of Lecce that belong to the Unione dei comuni della Grecìa Salentina. The thread the sources support is not so much the language as the rite: a Greek inscription on a bell tower, an archpriest who signs in Greek, a crypt with a dated fresco, a convent built to draw the territory away from the Greek rites. Beneath it, a second, feudal thread: the County of Soleto and the Orsini del Balzo. It must be said honestly that on the griko spoken today the sources read contradict one another for Soleto, Melpignano and Castrignano, and that for Carpignano Wikipedia describes it as not Greek-speaking: the language stays in the background, documented without contradictions between the sources only at Corigliano. It is an itinerary for those who read churches by dates and inscriptions.
At a glance
Duration. 4 days.
The route
Day 1 — Soleto
We arrive beneath the Guglia, a late Gothic bell tower which, according to the Unione dei comuni, Raimondello Orsini del Balzo, prince of Taranto, had built in 1397: forty metres, conceived to celebrate the power of the family. The reason lies in feudal geography. Soleto, writes the Unione, was in the Middle Ages the centre of a county that included various towns of the present-day Grecìa, and after Raimondello's death it was his wife, Maria d'Enghien, countess of Lecce, who continued to look after it. A legend has the Guglia raised in a single night by “macare” summoned by the alchemist Matteo Tafuri; the Region's record dismantles it by itself, recalling that the bell tower was finished a hundred years before Tafuri was born. In via Ospedale, the little fourteenth-century church of Santo Stefano has a façade in pietra leccese, a rose window and a bell gable with a mullioned window; inside, for the Region, the single nave is covered with cycles: the life of Jesus to the north, the miracles and martyrdom of santo Stefano to the south, the Last Judgement to the east. The singular detail cannot be seen in the town, because the sources read do not say where it is kept: in 2003, the regional record reports, a fragment of a black ceramic vase with a map of the Iapygian cape, the southern Salento, was found at Soleto. Wikipedia adds that in 1598 the archpriest Antonio Arcudi wrote to Clement VIII signing himself in Greek, the last archpriest of the Greek rite in the town. The rite, the next day, is found again carved on a tower.
Day 2 — Corigliano d'Otranto
The bell tower of the mother church of San Nicola is of 1465, but the Greek inscription that dates it, according to the Unione dei comuni, bears the year 6973, counted according to the Byzantine era; originally it was a watchtower. The church was built in the second half of the sixteenth century on an older chapel, has a portal of 1573 with the Redeemer, the Virgin and san Nicola di Mira in the lunette, and a mosaic floor with a tree of life that recalls the one in the cathedral of Otranto. The castello de' Monti explains another transformation, that of weapons. For the italia.it portal, in the sixteenth century the marquis Giovan Battista de' Monti enclosed the medieval towers, by then weak against firearms, in a Renaissance fortress, dedicating the four towers to San Michele Arcangelo, Sant'Antonio Abate, San Giorgio and San Giovanni Battista; the Unione recalls that duke Francesco Trane made it into a noble residence; the Baroque façade has allegorical statues in its niches (italia.it). Then the fortress became a factory: on the portal one still reads “Mulino a vapore San Nicola”. Corigliano is the town where the sources read agree on griko: the Touring Club calls it a linguistic island of griko, and Wikipedia reports that in 1964 it was spoken by 71.1% of the inhabitants. Before leaving there is the Arco Lucchetti, carved over the entrance of a house, which Wikipedia says was reassembled in 1497 by mastro Nicola Robi. The third day leads to where the Latin Church responded to the Greek rite.
Day 3 — Melpignano and Castrignano de' Greci
At Melpignano, Lipignana in griko, piazza San Giorgio is enclosed by Renaissance porticoes that the Unione says were built for commercial purposes; the church of San Giorgio, of the first decades of the sixteenth century and renewed between 1785 and 1794, has on its portal the saint slaying the dragon. The reason for the day lies on the outskirts. According to italia.it the former convent of the Augustinians was built from 1573 together with other convents and monasteries wanted by the Latin Church to counter the territory's attachment to the Greek rites; the church, with a single nave and six chapels, was completed in 1662, and the complex, abandoned for decades, today hosts cultural activities. The Palazzo Marchesale Castriota Scanderberg, of the seventeenth century, houses the Museo Storico del Tarantismo. Wikipedia recalls that the town stands on pietra leccese, with many quarries, and that from 1806 to 1837 it was united with Castrignano de' Greci.
Castrignano receives few lines, because the Comune's website returned no historical content. The Unione indicates the pozzelle, in griko “ta fréata”: underground cavities in karst dolines on the outskirts, small reservoirs dug for the families' water and for periods of drought; Wikipedia counts about a hundred of them in one doline, today an equipped park. The same Unione record recalls the castello De Gualtieris, remodelled, and traces back to the 6th century the Byzantine crypt of Sant'Onofrio. Wikipedia writes that the Greek rite lasted there until 1614. The next day the Greek rite is found again painted, with a date, at Carpignano.
Day 4 — Carpignano Salentino
A flight of steps and a small Baroque façade hide the crypt of the Madonna delle Grazie, known as di Santa Cristina, carved into the rock in two rooms with two apses. The Comune indicates it as the first testimony of the Greek rite at Carpignano, and here the detail is a signature: beside the Christ Pantocrator one reads “Theopilaktos 959”, the painter Teofilatto, according to the regional record. The town, writes the Comune, has its origins in rock-cut civilisation. Of the four original menhirs two remain, Grassi and Croce Grande, called Staurotomèa. In the town the Comune reads a layout with cardo and decumanus, today via Roma and via Duca Ghezzi; on the Palazzo Ducale of the Ghezzi one reads the motto “NON SIBI SED ALIIS”, and the Unione places the Museo Archeologico there. The abbey of Santa Maria della Grotta arises from a traditional tale, a blind old man and a dream of the Madonna; the church, for the Comune, preserves a canvas by Ippolito Borghese. Other places indicated by the Comune: the parish church, with the floor mosaic by Giuseppe Peluso and the baptistery commissioned by baron Nicolò Personè. The journey, in our proposal, ends here.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 7 defects corrected · not approved