Basilica of Santa Croce: one step away from Baroque beauty

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Basilica of Santa Croce: one step away from Baroque beauty

A few steps divide the Patria Palace Hotel from the most famous spectacle of Lecce’s Baroque: the Basilica of Santa Croce. We are lucky to enjoy this architectural masterpiece simply by looking beyond the square that divides us. Its beauty imposes itself and shines from the view from our rooms, suites and rooftop. This image gives our guests an exclusive and unforgettable Lecce experience.

Arriving at its doors, admiring the external details of the Basilica of Santa Croce, you will feel as you’re in front of an embroidered fabric, rather than a work of architecture: this delicate effect is the result of Cesare Penna's great love for sculpture, which literally led him to draw the upper facade in the stone with some gorgeous motifs and figures. Once inside, the majesty of the Basilica will strike the eye. It is organized in three naves and the largest is covered by a walnut ceiling with gold inserts. The art of the Baroque church combines the light colour of the Lecce stone with the colors of the fine interior works of art, that reproduce religious motifs. It was built and decorated by the greatest artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Lecce between 1549 and 1646. Its whole renovated beauty stunned the whole city after two years of restoration, in 2019. The Basilica has seen Lecce growing and evolving over the centuries, intertwining historical and personal events. It is so loved by people of Lecce that in 1941, to preserve its beauty from the bombings of the Second World War, they covered it with a little brick wall. The majestic church in via Umberto I has thus become a symbol of eternal love for many couples, both Italian and foreign, who have chosen the Basilica as the location for their wedding. We have seen so many brides getting ready in our rooms and walking those few meters almost flying. How many times the gaze, full of this beauty, was not able to distinguish the laces of their dresses from the embroideries of its stone!

For this reason, we are not surprised to see our guests staring at the Basilica from the windows, lighted up by the first rays of sunshine in the morning. Every traveller, who knows how to recognize beauty, is called to turn the gaze to capture the love between the Basilica of Santa Croce and Lecce.