Specchia

Specchia sits on the Serra Magnone, one of the higher points in lower Salento, forty-five kilometers south of Lecce and ten kilometers from the Ionian coast. The name comes from the specchie, conical piles of dry stones the Messapians built across the peninsula as defensive lookouts. The medieval nucleus formed in the ninth century when Saracen raids pushed coastal villagers inland and onto the hill.

The fifteenth-century street plan survives intact: a tight grid of alleys, courtyards and Baroque portals enclosed by what remains of the walls. Castello Risolo dominates the center, a sixteenth-century block enlarged in the seventeenth century by the Trane and Protonobilissimo families as their residence. The Convento dei Francescani Neri dates to 1531.

Specchia entered the Borghi più belli d'Italia network in 2004 and the Ministry of Tourism named it Gioiello d'Italia in 2012. Walking the lanes after dusk, the village reads as one continuous courtyard.