| The church of the Congrega di Maria SS. Assunta in San Cassiano is a plain building in late baroque style.
The simple façade is adorned with a niche and a large window in line with the entranceway.
The elaborate crowning provides movement.
Inside there is just one nave with three altars opening off it, these are made out of Leccese stone in late 18th century style.
The main altar is dedicated to the Holy Cross and contains a wall painting portraying “Ecce Homo”.
On the right there is the altar of Saint Anna adorned with a painting of the Saint with the Holy Family, whereas the left hand altar, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, has a painting portraying the Immaculate Conception.
In a document from 1770 the church is cited together with a substantial number of the paintings and furnishings it contained.
Unfortunately a great deal of that heritage has been lost.
Recent archaeological excavations brought to light a large medieval cemetery, a sign that the church was built on a much older site of Christian worship.
The small square in front of the church has been completely renovated, a project undertaken by the GAL Capo S. Maria di Leuca organisation, which involved the local inhabitants in architectural redefinition of the area.
Indeed, the older generation of villagers were asked to tell the story of piazza della Congrega through their own memories of it. The interviews carried out with these village elders were then recounted to school children who drew pictures based on the ideas the stories had conveyed to them. The tangible result of this exciting experiment to retrace memories was that the school children’s drawings (a visual representation of the memories) were used when designing the square and the objects placed in it, thus basing the square’s architecture on the collective memory of the townspeople.
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