Museo Faggiano

An accidental archeological museum is one of Lecce's fascinating sites, that gives a glimpse of the many layers of history that make up an Italian city. The building's owner set about to repair some faulty plumbing and instead uncovered 2,000 years of history! Breaking the floor to locate the broken sewer lines, Mr. Faggiano found underground corridors and rooms and started digging deeper. Literally. Along with a team of archeologists, they found Messapi flooring and walls, Roman cisterns, Greek vases and other symbols and artifacts of many epochs of history.

They also learned that the building had once been a convent for a cloistered order of nuns, finding a chapel, and uncovered tombs like a mini-catacombs. A cistern reached down 10 meters, to the River Idume below. All in all, the accidental discovery has become an interesting museum. The unusual story was even written up in the New York Times.

Open from 9:30 AM til 8:00 PM daily.