Penitenza e pellegrinaggio al Crocefisso della Pietà di Galatone in antico regime

The miraculous icon of the Crucifixion of the Pietà di Galatone, painted by a monk of the Monastery of St. Nicola di Pergoleto around the years of Turkish occupation of Otranto (1480), manifested itself to the community of Galatone in 1621 with clamorous miracles that caused a flow of Pilgrims from all over the province and beyond. So, the year after, the religious and civil authorities decided to build a chapel to protect the sacred icon. It was erected by master Pietrantonio Pugliese of Nardò and in May 1623 with the many offers collected he made a great feast for the finding of the Cross. Unfortunately, the church collapsed on February 2, 1683, reducing the icon to so many fragments. Immediately clergymen, gentlemen, and devout citizens, mobilized the community and started building a sumptuous temple that would invite the people and the pilgrims that grew more and more. The direction of Giuseppe Zimbalo, alias Zingarello, and the eye-catching scenery by Aprile Petrachi, sculptor of Melendugno, who built between 1696 and 1699, the cantor and the organ, the golden-leafed ceiling and the entrance door while Aniello Letizia's and many other artists' canvases, completed to create a monument which is one of the most admired of Salento, attracting praying crowds of pilgrims and penitents, in that temple of exuberant and spectacular theatrility in which Art was placed at the service of the Faith and the "pietas", also increasing religious tourism.