Via Cosimo de Giorgi

Born in Lizzanello on 9 February 1842, he was one of the greatest scholars of the Terra d’Otranto. He produced an enormous number of works over the course of his life, but his unquestioned masterpiece is “Province of Lecce – Travel Sketches“, in which he meticulously catalogued monuments, ruins, rock settlements, and natural environments of the towns and villages of Salento. The second volume of the work contains a detailed account of the Abbey of San Nicola di Casole and its church, which at the time was still entirely standing and frescoed. He is also responsible for the description of the frescoes in the crypt of Sant’Angelo and the dedicatory inscriptions that were still visible at the end of the 19th century.

He is also credited with the rediscovery and study of the Roman Amphitheatre of Lecce.

In 1872, he founded the Meteorological Observatory of the Salento capital.