A frescoed Gothic basilica and the tradition of tarantism
In the heart of the Salento, Galatina is an elegant town with a baroque centre and two treasures. The first is the Basilica of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria, built between 1383 and 1391 by the Orsini del Balzo family, one of the most important Gothic monuments in southern Italy. Its interior is entirely covered with a cycle of fifteenth century frescoes, so vast and colourful that it has been compared to the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi: scenes from the Apocalypse, Genesis, the life of Christ and of St Catherine, the sacraments and the angelic hierarchies, painted by artists from the Marche, Campania and the Salento.
The second is linked to tarantism, an ancient phenomenon of the Salento: women, and sometimes men, who believed they had been bitten by a spider, the "taranta", fell into a state of crisis, cured through days of frenzied dancing to the rhythm of the tambourine, the pizzica. On 29 June, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the "tarantate" came to the small chapel of St Paul in Galatina, the protector of those bitten by snakes and spiders, to drink the miraculous water of the well and to be freed. The anthropologist Ernesto de Martino studied the phenomenon in 1959 in his book "La terra del rimorso". Galatina is also known for the pasticciotto, the custard tart of Lecce, which was born here according to tradition.
Tip: the Ascalone pastry shop claims to have invented the pasticciotto in the eighteenth century; on 29 June the town celebrates its patron saints.
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