| At the beginning, the church of St. Leonardo was a crypt dedicated to S. Michele Arcangelo.
According to tradition, this could be the core of the Christian belief in this town, and the Saint was best known in the town and in the countryside too. It is believed that St. Paul himself came into the crypt to celebrate religious ceremonies and preach.
Above this underground church, in 1722 the building of a bell tower and a new church began. The architect was one of the best- known architects from Salento, Mauro Manieri, who worked as a sculptor, painter, engraver and a goldsmith too. He designed also the layout of the façade of the Cathedral in Taranto and of the church of Alcantarine in Lecce. On the façade of St Leonardo Church, with two artistic orders Ionic and Corinthian, many Baroque details added by Manieri are quite significant. He matches the classic shapes with many decorative details. The curved semi-arches of the pediment throughout the light come into the window above in a proportional, harmonic and rich way, instead of the inside that tends to perfuse the space thanks to the only Corinthian style and to the arches in the side- chapels. The masterpiece is the cross- vaulted ceiling combined with the soft brightness and the elegance of stuccoes.
In the church of the Benedectine monastery of nuns from aristocratic and bourgeoise families, everything is precious; such as the majolica floor on the main altar, the choirs on the chapels arches, where the nuns of the enclosed Order preached during religious ceremonies behind gratings. On the outside, there are in the niches of the bell tower, the representative saints of the Benedictine Order: S. Benedetto and S. Scolastica, baroque curved statues peculiar of Manieri and his laboratory. The church is close to the former Benedictine monastery, dated to XVIth century; confiscated by the Government after Italian Unification. As time went on, it is used as a school. Nowadays, it is left to fate |