The historic center of Mesagne is made to be covered on foot. Those who visit it have the opportunity to admire in every corner historical and architectural beauties of inestimable value. Narrow streets with a characteristic basolato, large squares, noble palaces and beautiful churches are the testimony of the transformation of the medieval walled city that brilliantly changes its face and becomes baroque. Coming from Via Brindisi, on the side where the Villa Comunale overlooks Piazza V. Emanuele II, stands the Votive Column in honor of the Madonna del Carmine, protector of Mesagne. It was built at the beginning of the second half of the last century in Piazza IV Novembre, but moved towards the end of the same century, where it is currently, and rebuilt with more precious material than the previous one. The statue of the Madonna is from the fifties, having been the original struck by lightning. On the left there is the Porta Grande through which one enters the splendid historical center with its characteristic heart shape. On Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, a place where until a few years ago an ancient fair was celebrated, in what was once the structure of the ancient city walls, the Porta Grande opens out, facing north. If the existence of a door in that place is attested since ancient times and in any case since the sixteenth century, the visible one today dates back to 1784. It was rebuilt in place of the previous collapsed by the Marquis Barretta, at that time lord of Mesagne, in constant conflict with the University. The workers, as well as Mesagne, were from Oria and Torre Santa Susanna. On the door in relief two coats of arms, representatives, from top to bottom, the Barretta family and the civic University of Mesagne. It was definitively reorganized in the years 1869-1870. Entering via Castello, we find one of the most beautiful and characteristic squares of Mesagne: Piazza Orsini del Balzo, designed by architect Francesco Capodieci and formerly called Piazza del Principe. Palazzo Cavaliere overlooks this and the Church of Sant'Anna is one of the most beautiful and harmonious baroque churches. In Piazza Orsini del Balzo stands the Palazzo Cavaliere which was already owned by the De Mitri family and later by the Parisi family. The building already existed in 1753, and it is reasonable to suppose that its construction dates back to the early eighteenth century. On the façade there is an imposing portal and on the upper floor there are four large arches. It was once used as a barracks to house troops stationed in Mesagne. From that of the Prince you reach the ancient Piazza dei Nobili, today Piazza IV Novembre, where you can admire the marvelous Matrice Church, one of the most representative monuments of Baroque art in Salento. At its side is the Archaeological Complex of Vico Quercia which documents the existence not only of the historical center, but of the entire urbanized area of Mesagne, of an Iron Age settlement. Opposite the Chiesa Matrice, on the east side of Piazza IV Novembre, there is a building, now fully restored, which until a few years ago was used as a Pretura. Built in the early years of the last century, it was the seat of the Municipality from 1835 to 1868. Since 1985 it was the seat of the Archaeological Museum (the Museum since 1999 is located inside the city castle) and the Municipal Library, both dedicated to Ugo Granafei. The palace is surmounted by a tower, at the top of which is a clock, fully functional, which once served to mark the hours of city life. At the center is the emblem of Mesagne represented by a palm tree with two ears of wheat underneath. Wheat plants would indicate the fertility of the Mesagnan countryside, while the palm tree would represent victory or fortune. Next to the Palazzo, home to the Library and the Municipal Museum, between the Antonio Criscuolo and IV Novembre squares, and Via Albricci, stands a sixteenth-century building that was built as a hospital. In 1868 it became the seat of the Town Hall that housed until 1936. Modified architecturally in the last century, on the north-east corner of the facade, at the top, a stone hand holding a cross. According to tradition, the heads of those condemned to death by beheading were hung on the hand. On the north-west corner, however, the monument has an emblem surmounted by an angel supported by a column. next to Piazza Criscuolo you can still see the emblem of the Municipality and the inscription «hospitiupauper». This is how we reached Piazza Antonio Criscuolo, the ancient Piazza del Fogliame, so called because in ancient times it was the place where the commercial life of the town took place; here the fruit and vegetable market took place. At the end of 1600 Mesagne had three squares inside the city walls: one called dei Nobili, the current Piazza IV Novembre or "Lu Sitili", in front of the Chiesa Matrice; Informazioni su Google TraduttoreCommunityPer cellulariTutto su GooglePrivacy e TerminiGuidaInvia commentithe other was called the Prince (Orsini del Balzo), while the third was precisely the square of the folks also called Piazza del Popolo, frequented mainly by the middle class.On this same square you can admire one of the most beautiful votive shrines in the country that It preserves the painted image of the Blessed Virgin of Carmel, Patroness of the City of Mesagne since 1651. Continuing on the road that runs along the votive shrine we meet the Piazzetta dei Resta, where you can admire the beautiful sixteenth-century portals, coming from the Resta family palace , which was knocked down in the late fifties. Fortunately, these portals have been recovered and inserted in the Palazzo Taberini dating back to the twentieth century. Continuing to walk the small streets of the historic center with its characteristic paving, we pass through Via Martiri della Libertà with the seat of the Municipal Art Gallery. One then meets one of the main access gates to the ancient town, the Porta Nuova. It overlooks Via Federico II Svevo and was built in the east wall in 1606, to put in communication the new districts with the city center. Adorned with coats of arms and inscriptions, with a more ornamental and defensive function, it was rebuilt in 1702. A few steps along Via Federico II Svevo meets the current Teatro Comunale, or rather the reconstruction of the old Teatro Comunale in the years 1934-1936 of which it conserves the prospect and the stage. Started in 1894, after a suspension of the works, it was completed in 1895. The inauguration took place on the evening of 17 June 1895 with the performance of the Scognamiglio company in front of a mesagnese audience enthusiastic about its horse stirrup theater and surrounded by different orders of stages! Continuing south, you meet in Piazza Garibaldi the parish church of S. Maria di Betlem, served until 1808 by the Celestine Fathers who had, next to the Church, one of the most important monastery of the entire province.Nei the Church until the 1834, when it was demolished, there was the Porta Piccola. This was the south gate of Mesagne that stood exactly on the point where the current Piazza Cavour joins Piazza Matteotti. For the return one chooses to pass via Lucantonio Resta "named after a Mesagnese ecclesiastic, first archpriest and then bishop of Castro . Along this road it is possible to admire the splendid 17th century Granafei Portal, richly decorated, with the family arm at the top: the rampant lion of black, flashed red, bearing between the front branches three ears of black wheat in a golden field, on the right cross section there is a cross across the board. Surely to indicate the ecclesiastical status of the owner, the abbot Luca Granafei of the Marquis of Serranova. This emblem appears to be identical to that represented on one of the most beautiful and important buildings of Brindisi, already 'seat of the Court of Assizes, Palazzo Granafei or Nervegna from the name of the last owner, and also belonged to the abbot Luca Granafei, so as attested in the various archival documents, from which it is possible to note that the ecclesiastical himself also owned an oil mill in this road. On the same street L.A. The Church stands, dedicated to the Saints Medici Cosma and Damiano, which, although of modest size, is one of the most interesting eighteenth-century monuments of the city. The building, recently restored, has a characteristic hexagonal plan with two entrances in the façade between which there is a frescoed aedicule with the image of the two Saints bearing the palm of martyrdom and the Gospel. Inside, the main altar houses the painting depicting the Medici Saints and the Immaculate Virgin: recently restored, this work, clearly of a confraternity, is one of the few paintings of the Salento area in which the Medici Saints are depicted together with the Immaculate Virgin and the latter is represented according to the iconographic attributes that the Franciscans associated them, promoting their cult even before the Church proclaimed the dogma. The side altar also houses a canvas depicting the Virgin of Carmine who saves the souls of Purgatory with the Scapular. Then we move on to Via Profilo where some archaeological remains from the Middle Ages have come to light in a nineteenth-century building. The real discovery of the building dates back to 1996 when the ancient part of the city was put in safety. At the time of the facts, in the absence of financial resources, it was decided to wall the access door of the structure. The funds that were put in place in the contingency of the facts were intended exclusively for public housing and not restoration. However, it was communicated to the Superintendency of Taranto which carried out a specific inspection, noting that it was probably the remains of the medieval church of the SSalvatore, as shown in the text "Mesagne: città delle 50 Chiese" by A.C. Leopardi. Inside the church there are several frescoes of significant artistic interest, depicting "drapes byzantine bill" probably of the thirteenth century, which for now visitors can only admire through the thick glass. Continuing along this street we meet Palazzo Savino from the sumptuous portal that "recalls the most famous baroque palaces in the province, from those of Francavilla Fontana to the portal of the Torre di Torchiarolo or to that of Palazzo Ripa di Brindisi. The portal, richly adorned with cushioned cushions with overlapping swirls, bears the family crest embossed on the keystone between two raised puttini, in the form of a shield. A few meters away in via Geofilo 7, we find a portal with arches to everything. sixth to a flat bed, on which there is a balcony with fluted shelves with teeth on the front and side scrolls. Palazzo Guarini was built in the sixteenth century, as part of the architectural and urban renewal that involved the historic center of the city. The compact size of the factory, articulated on two floors, is ennobled by decorative elements of great impact, placed to underline the main architectural parties. The façade is marked on the long side by three windows framed by sober cornices of typically 16th century origin, and by a larger window with a balustrade (now missing) supported by refined scrolls; the same is distinguished by the inscription CONSERVA DOMINE and is embellished with a lunette placed to frame an heraldic coat of arms among finely sculpted plant elements. The main entrance, arched, is surmounted by an architrave crossed by plant girali and a classical frame supported by shelves. Protruding male protomes with exasperated expression protrude from the building party, typical of the taste and the inspiration of Mannerist sculpture. Some semi-hypogean rooms located in the basement of the building welcome a charming olive press that remained in use until the nineteenth century; the olive pressing tank, the large molar stone, the so-called "Calabrian" press, and the channels that convey the oil to the settling tanks are still visible on the floor. There is also a chimney, used to keep the temperature warm and thus prevent coagulation of the oil, favoring the work of the nachir and of the workers who used to stay there during the working period. On the first floor of the building are currently home to some municipal offices (Department of Sports, Tourism and Entertainment and Department for Youth, Education and Handicap). "At the end of Via E. Santacesaria at the confluence with Piazza IV Novembre, another beautiful building stately adorned with apotropaic masks of grotesque style, which were once used as well as to cover the drainage channels also to keep away the evil influences.There is still a bit 'of time can penetrate the characteristic and picturesque maze of squares and alleys that starting from via Dormio it ends in piazzetta dei Ferdinando passing through piazza S. Anna vecchia.Percorso a short stretch of via dei Dormio is found in one of the most ancient squares of Mesagne, that of S. Anna dei Greci. In this square there was the ancient church of S. Maria la Greca. Proceeding along via Dormio you arrive in the Piazzetta dei Ferdinando, an illustrious doctor and historian, who lived from 1569 to 1638.