Church of Santa Maria del Casale

Santa Maria del Casale is a little outside the centre, towards the Casale quarter, but it is one of the most beautiful churches in Brindisi and well worth the detour. It has been a national monument since 1875.

It was built at the end of the thirteenth century, in Romanesque-Gothic style, where there was already a chapel linked to Saint Francis of Assisi's passage; it was commissioned by Philip of Anjou and his wife Catherine. In 1310 the trial of the Templars was held here, condemning the absent knights in absentia.

The façade of banded two-coloured stone will strike you from outside. Inside, beneath the timber-trussed roof, the walls are covered with frescoes still close to Byzantine taste: the Last Judgement, the Madonna among the Knights, the Crucifixion, the stories of Saint Catherine, the Last Supper.