Church of Saint Anthony of the Square

Marvelous

Ok

Very nice

Very beautiful to see and visit absolutely

Beautiful portal of the '500 made visible by a stained glass window

One of the most beautiful churches in Lecce

In 1565 the great military architect Gian Giacomo dell’Acaya, the one who designed the Castle of Lecce, donated the Convent and the Church of Sant'Antonio da Padova to the Observants as they were built on the area of ​​relevance of his palace. The complex is also known as "San Giuseppe" because it officiates the lay brotherhood of the carpenters. In 1584 the church was erected, which was profoundly modified in 1765, as the friars commissioned the architect Celestino Regina to expand the building, building a new nave and transforming the old one into a transept: on the side of the church you can still see the The original sixteenth-century portal, which constituted the main entrance, and the rose window. In 1807, the convent was used as a civilian house and demolished in the early twentieth century. The church associates a façade that is all in all simple, with an elegantly decorated portal and two niches which house the statues of Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint John of Capestrano, a very rich interior in which the marble high altar stands out, the wooden choir of the 16th century and the remarkable Baroque Leccese altars, such as those dedicated to Santa Rita and San Giuseppe. On the counter-facade the statue of San Rocco from the 16th century. attributed to Gabriele Riccardi. The altar of San Francesco, dated to 1711 and attributed to Giuseppe Zimbalo, contains the canvas of the same name painted in 1771 by Serafino Elmo, an illustrious and prized painter from Lecce. Among the paintings, that of the Nativity of Paolo Veronese and the monumental San Pietro with the keys of Francesco Fracanzano.