Church of Santa Maria del Casale

Built between the late 13th and early 14th centuries, when Brindisi was a crossroads of crusaders and merchants bound for the Adriatic, it owes its name to the old rural hamlet, the “casale”, that stood outside the walls. The façade alternates bands of light and dark stone in the opus isodomum technique: a signature of Apulian Gothic touched by Byzantine influence. The central portal is delicately carved with tendrils, figures and sacred symbols.

The interior holds the real treasure: walls almost entirely covered with fourteenth-century frescoes, among the best preserved in the region. The Last Judgement dominating the counter-façade is a visual document of extraordinary power, angels and the damned, Heaven and Hell painted with a chromatic vividness that still strikes. Tradition holds that knights departing for the Holy Land stopped here to pray: this was their last image of home.