History, mixtures and cultural stratifications

Salentini population were the first ones to occupy it, Salento name comes from “SALE king” denomination.Then this land passed to the great dominations: Greek, Roman, Norman, Aragonese, Byzantine, Swebia… until the bloodthirsty Turkish domination, in the name of Allah.
Artistic and architectural patrimony of this impressive land is subject to mixtures: that patrimony has been scenery of many civilisations, that marked their passing through settling and different architectural styles. That is to say a Salento area that accompany us along a "cultural walk", in the time with their various feautures.
Then, we can find the prehistory megalithic structures (as for example dolmen and menhir), caves with rocky images, typical of the hypogeum (Cervi cave in Porto Basilico), then the evolved Bizantine crypts.
We also can visit pagan temples of Greek - Roman civilisations, the late Middle-Ages Byzantine and Norman Chirches and then we can find Renaissance sumptuous naves or the opulent Lecce baroque peculiarity. In this connection, we can state that Lecce represente the mondial capital city of Baroque.
We can find a baroque jubilation on the splendid churches fronts on the convents, on the public and private city edifices until the most simple front doors and balconies (Santa Croce Basilica represents the maximum expression of mondial Baroque).