DIY Nightmare or DIY Dream?

In 1971, Luciano Faggiano purchased a building in the old city with the intent of opening his own trattoria. Shortly into the project he discovered water continuously appearing on the floor of the building.

In order to fix what he assumed was a broken pipe, he enlisted the help of his son and began breaking through the stone floor. Much to his surprise, beneath the floor, he found an ancient sub floor and evidence of additional windows into the region’s long history.

After seven years of digging and the involvement of archeological experts, Luciano uncovered an underground world dating back before the birth of Jesus, with many rooms, cisterns, escape tunnels, Messapian tombs, a Roman granary, a Franciscan chapel and even etchings from the Knights Templar. More than five thousand artifacts were uncovered during the excavation, the best of which are now housed in a nearby museum.

Rather than open a trattoria, Luciano converted the building to a truly fascinating museum that allows visitors to descend into the ancient structures and see first hand where these treasures were found. Our visit there was probably the highlight of our stay in Lecce (with the possible exception of the gelato).

So fascinating is the story that no less that the New York Times published an article on the museum: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/world/europe…

Since I am limited to posting only six photos on this blog, here is a link to the museum’s photo gallery: http://www.museofaggiano.it/en/photo-gallery/

Luciano still hasn’t opened his trattoria, but plans are in the works.

Oh yeah, in 2008, he finally located and repaired the broken pipe.Read more