Church of Santa Teresa

Built by the end ofthe 17th century and operating a regular service to the cloistered convent of the Teresiane, this church represents a significant example, if not the only one, of Lecce Baroque style of the time.

It is noticeable in the majestic retable of the high altar minutely carved in Lecce stone, which provides a background to the mannered, polychrome marble altar, designed by the architect Niccolò Tagliacozzi Canale and sculpted by the Neapolitan Gennaro Cimafonte in the first half of the 18th century.

Both the church and the convent were built at the care and expenses of the Spanish bishop Perez de la Lastra, whose funerary marble monument can be seen “in cornu evangeli”.

The gold-plated eighteenth century organ pipe in the singer’s gallery of the presbytery glitters. It is attributed to the master Carlo Sanarica from Grottaglie who died in Gallipoli in 1770.

Interesting is the picture portraying Saints Agostino and Ignazio di Loyola attributed to the school of Lecce of the painter Antonio Verrio.

Original text – Elio Pindinelli
English translation by Rocco Merenda