centro storico, di pianura, agricolo, Casarano

On a low plateau above the Salento plain, the old core of Casarano perches like a terrace on the hillside. This is a settlement with deep roots: legend credits the Romans with its foundation, though Saracen raids forced a rebuilding in the late Middle Ages, when it absorbed the older Casaranello. The medieval phase left its finest monument, the Church of Santa Maria della Croce, whose mosaics span the 5th and 13th centuries, making it, by reputation, the most distinguished Byzantine and early-medieval building in all Puglia.

The town’s layout responds to two modest heights, the hills of the Immacolata and San Domenico. After the year 1000, the site was artificially split into two fiefs, Casarano ‘piccolo’ and ‘grande’, linked by the roads Pendino and Astorre. Along these, the Borgo Le Trice grew. Some think the Borgo Terra may have been a fortified structure of Swabian origin: two corners on Vico Terra hint at bastions, and the axes of cardo and decumanus within the perimeter were later turned into a courtyard.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.