Acquarica del Capo, storia e leggenda di un paese liquido

Castello medievale di Acquarica del Capo scaled 1 scaled

Editorial Staff 8 December 2022

Acquarica del Capo is a municipality in the province of Lecce, since 2019 merged with Presicce to form the new municipality of Presicce-Acquarica. It is one of the municipalities belonging to the so-called region of the Salento greenhouses.

Its history is, today as yesterday, a history of annexations and mergers, mixing and remixing that make one think of the continuous and abundant flow of underground waters to which it owes its name. It was born, in fact, from the destruction of Pompignano by the Saracens around the 9th and 10th centuries and from the subsequent absorption of Ceciovizzo and Gardigliano.

The farmhouse was entrusted by the Norman Tancredi in 1190 to the Guarino family who dominated it during various phases until the end of the 17th century. The last feudal lords were the duke Antonio Zunica with his wife Luisa Riario Sforza.

Among the religious architectures of particular value, the Church of Santa Maria dei Panelli (more popularly called dei Panetti, because the land adjacent to the church was cultivated with wheat to make bread for the poor) with an adjoining crypt, located in the Celsorizzo farmhouse, of medieval origin and with a double apse plan, a rare example in the entire province, and the Church of San Carlo Borromeo, protector of the town, dating back to 1619, which houses valuable baroque altars.

Also worth a visit is the medieval castle, built during the 15th century by Giovanni Antonio Orsini Del Balzo who had the fief of Acquarica in 1432, which originally consisted of a wall reinforced by four towers of which only one is currently intact. Inside you can still see traces of the ancient church of San Francesco, which contains some noble tombs. The ground floor houses the Museo del Giunco while in the courtyard of the Castle is preserved the “Pila di Pompignano”, a water basin carved from a single boulder, coming from the abandoned farmhouse of the Madonna di Pompignano, saved from destruction and recovered in 1982 by the local writer Carlo Stasi who narrated its stories and legends.

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Acquarica del Capo, history and legend of a liquid town

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Acquarica del Capo, history and legend of a liquid town

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