Walls of Lecce

The Walls of Lecce represent an important testimony of 16th-century fortification, commissioned by Emperor Charles V to fend off Turkish invasions that, at the time, were devastating Southern Italy.\n\nThe emperor tasked Don Pedro de Toledo y Zùniga, Viceroy of Naples, with inspecting the existing fortifications in the city of Lecce. The result was a powerful ring of walls, equipped with angular bastions to defend the sections most exposed to external attacks.\n\nThe adaptation of the walls was entrusted to the architect Gian Giacomo dell’Acaya, already responsible for the redevelopment of the fortified village of Acaya, and received new impetus from 1542 with Don Ferrante Loffredo, governor of the provinces of Bari and Terra d’Otranto. The city wall was thus replaced by a fortification equipped with bulwarks capable of resisting attacks with the new weapons of the time. The defensive front of the entire stretch is about 60 meters long and consists of two levels: the upper level, above the level of the moat, and the lower level, underground, partly carved into the rock that corresponds to the internal walking surface.