Tales of the courtyard

Once, a corte was a small world gathered beneath the same patch of sky, made of voices, scents and everyday gestures. The homes of several families looked onto the courtyard, and towards the street there was a single way in: a great arched doorway.

Life in the corte was lived together. Rainwater was drawn from the underground cistern, laundry was done at the pila, and the fruits of the vegetable garden were laid out to dry in the sun on the terraces. Women sewed and chatted, children played under everyone's watchful eye, and in the evening, sitting outside in the cool air, people told each other stories.

The courtyard still bears the marks of that life. Today it is our guests' open-air living room, and it keeps the spirit of old: a place sheltered from the street, made for being together.

The walls and vaults of the courtyard are made of pietra leccese, the same golden stone that adorns the Baroque churches and palaces of Lecce. It was born on the floor of the sea that covered Salento millions of years ago.

If you look closely at the blocks, fossils appear in every room. The easiest to spot are pectinids, fan-shaped shells related to scallops; but pietra leccese has also yielded shark teeth (Carcharodon megalodon) and the remains of sperm whales, turtles and even crocodiles. Among the most famous finds is Zygophyseter varolai, a prehistoric sperm whale more than six metres long. Try looking for the courtyard's own fossils during your stay: once you have found the first one, you will keep seeing them.

Above one of the passages of the courtyard, a lintel bears a Latin phrase carved in capital letters, broken off halfway.

Creatura enim tibi factori deserviens, EXARDESCIT IN TOrmentum adversus injustos, et lenior fit ad benefaciendum pro his qui in te confidunt.

For creation, obedient to you its Maker, blazes up to punish the unjust and grows gentle to do good to those who trust in you.

Book of Wisdom 16:24

The words come from the Bible, from the Book of Wisdom in the Latin translation known as the Vulgate. The passage looks back on the plagues of Egypt: nature, obedient to its Creator, unleashes itself against the oppressors and becomes gentle and protective towards those who trust in Him.

On the lintel, however, the sentence breaks off halfway: over the decades the courtyard was reworked many times to suit the lives of those who lived here, and a wall built later hid the rest of the word.

At the centre of some of the vaults, at their highest point, a small cross is carved into the stone. For centuries patient hands traced signs like this on houses, doorways and ceilings, so that evil would stay outside the threshold and those living within the walls could sleep in peace.

Often it was the master mason who left it with the last stroke of his chisel, like a signature on the finished work; at other times it was made during the blessing of the rooms, to consecrate the new home. Ever since, those crosses have stayed up there, silent, watching over the sleep of whoever rests beneath these vaults.