| Usually considered the end of the Appian way, representing the culmination of an ancient Roman monumental area, (the arx romana) one of the two columns, ruined in 1528 and left unattended for about 100 years, was donated in 1657 by the then Mayor Carlo Stea to the city of Lecce to erect a monument in a sign of devotion to Sant'Oronzo, who had escaped the Salento peninsula during an epidemic of the plague.
They are located on the Piazzetta Colonne, which can be reached by climbing the staircase named after the poet Virgil, which takes its name from the place where the great poet died in 19 BC, from outside you can read an inscription commemorating the event, while inside the arches are preserved. The steps, which up to the early 900s were half their current lengths, were extended in 1933 to allow for the current look
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