According to tradition, not supported by historiography, this old church was erected by St. Francis of Assisi himself in 1217.
No architectural or structural element has survived of the old church, but signs of the existence of members of the Franciscan Order in the 15th century, before the Reformation, can be seen in the cloister.
The façade in carparo was made by Mauro Manieri according to the typical Baroque style of Salento and the lessons of Borromini in 1736.
The three nave impressive interior with the spaces emphasized by the late sixteenth century pilasters, was embellished and enriched with stuccoes of the firsttwenty years of the 18th century.
To this church is connected the popular tradition regarding Misma, “the evil thief” who did not want to repent while hanging from the cross near the Crucified Christ as Disma “the good thief” did.
The story goes that, every year, Misma’s clothing deteriorates in the same way as man’s soul is eaten away by sin.
In this church there is the small Chapel of the Spaniards containing a noble sepulchre, which was built in the 17th century at the expense of the Spanish nobleman Giuseppe Della Cueva, who was the Castellan of Gallipoli. He ordered to put the statues of the good and the evil thieves with the dead Christ in a recess under the altar and the statues of Mary, John and Joseph from Arimathea at the foot of the altar.
Gabriele D’Annunzio, was so astounded by the statue of the evil thief that he reported that unforgettable memory in some of his works.
Valuable are the artworks in the church, such as St. Francis, attributed to the Venetian school of Pordenone; fine paintings by Catalano; the group of the 16th-century Lithic Nativity Scene; the 17th-century wooden crucifix, and the organ pipe made by Pietro and Simone Kircher from Gallipoli in 1726.
The stone high relief of St. Michael the Archangel made at the end of the fifteenth century, which comes from the old church of St. Angel is kept just here.
Original text – Elio Pindinelli
English translation by Rocco Merenda
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