The Grotto of Saint Oronzo

The countryside around Turi is rich in karst caves and sinkholes. Among them, the grotto dedicated to Saint Oronzo, traditionally regarded as the evangeliser of ancient Japygia, is the only one that is accessible and has been extensively studied.

The grotto appears to have been used for religious worship since at least the medieval period, when it contained several altars associated with different forms of devotion over the centuries. These were gradually replaced by the cult of Saint Oronzo, the saint closely associated with the city of Lecce.

According to the Oronzian tradition, the definitive consecration of the grotto to Saint Oronzo took place following the plague of 1656–1658, which claimed the lives of around 800 people in Turi. Tradition tells that the Saint, promising to intercede for an end to the devastating epidemic, revealed the forgotten entrance to the grotto to a young woman while she was praying.

During the 18th century, the grotto became the crypt of the large church built above it, designed both to protect the sacred site from the elements and to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims and devotees.

Inside is a remarkable altar, but the grotto’s greatest artistic treasure is its magnificent 18th-century floor, composed of 238 hand-painted majolica tiles. Their imaginative and varied decorative motifs belong to the ceramic tradition of Laterza from the first half of the 18th century, making the floor one of the most significant surviving catalogues of its ornamental repertoire.

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