Faggiano Museum - the onion of Lecce

September 18, 2023

I set off early this morning to get to a bike tour place for a biking tour of Lecce - it was on the opposite side of the town and allowing time for a caffe lecesse and allowing time for getting lost, I was out wandering just after 9. Sadly Velo Bike Tours had double booked itself, so with the promise of a tour tomorrow morning at 10, I headed off to blissfully get lost. So many possibilities of that, so many little corners and piazzas - and suddenly I saw the sign Faggiano Museum. I had of course read about this place but not bothered to follow up on it, but when it is delivered on a plate in front of you, you just have to roll with it.

Background story is that in 2000 Mr Faggiano and his wife bought the house with the intention of converting the street level into a Trattoria and using the upper levels to live in. Before they moved in, Mr Faggiano noticed that the sewage was backing up in the toilet and set about trying to find the blocked pipe with the help of two of his sons. They found an underground corridor and other rooms under the floor. What lay beneath was a subterranean world tracing back to before the birth of Christ; a Messapian tomb, a Roman granary, a Franciscan chapel where nuns had prepared the bodies of the dead, and even etchings showing that the Knights Templar had been there too. Instead of a trattoria, Mr Faggiano has a museum. He didn't initially tell his wife what he had found, possibly because he was lowering his youngest son down cisterns on a rope, and thought she wouldn't be happy about this - he made his son promise not to tell his mama, although it was hard to explain the dirty clothes each day.

What lay beneath the floor of the house was a history onion, and each layer as it peeled back revealed earlier and earlier civilisations - Messapians to the Romans, medieval to the Byzantine. Each consecutive civilisation had just been built on top of what was already there. He continued digging but eventually his neighbours reported the activity - he was allowed to continue looking for the 'blocked sewage pipe' on the basis that his work was supervised. Interesting that all of the costs of this archeological dig have been borne by the Faggiano Family, although supervised by the local experts. The museum is a private one.

I took heaps of photos which need explanation to give them context so if your eyes have glazed over, move on and we'll meet again next instalment.

The information for each site of interest was incredibly well done. I started at the subterranean level (stairs leading deep down below the floor) and then worked my way through the upper levels.

This is the Roman granary - the rings around the circumference would have determined how much grain there was stored.

This is looking down the cistern for storing water. it went down 5 meters below the access room - and yes, I climbed down there to check it out - waaaay below the ground! There was a bucket on the street level .

A lot of the 'rooms' had small gaps in the walls for escape passages - the exterior walls had peep holes looking out to where an attack could take place, and these escape routes would have been used under seige.

Another well cistern - seriously deep below the ground.

This was a little macabre - the steps lead down to the room where the nuns hung the dead bodies - there was a drainage system for the blood to drip down. Not sure what happened next...

Collections of pottery found in the dig.

another secret passage, you can see the stairs leading up on the right

A Knights Templar sign.

in the Franciscan convent.

this is part of the epigraph (the first half hasnt been located) but would have said SI DEUS PRO NOBIS QUIS CONTRA NOS. - if god is with us, who can be against us.

A ceiling from the 16th century made of a central cross and about 600 cylindrical earthern-ware jars (the circles are the bases of the jars) - these were used for thermal insulation and to lighten the weight of the ceiling.