House Hunting in Puglia: Galatina
As a foreigner, one of the joys of buying a property in Puglia, or anywhere in Italy for that matter, is the hunt for the dream house. Having flown from Australia, I was on a schedule and viewed around 35 properties in 18 days, in towns, villages and countryside all over Salento. I looked from the Adriatic across to the Ionian Coast, and from Nardo and Lecce down to Presicce and Gagliano del Capo. What’s funny is that in Salento - the ultimate Italian summer playground - I began my search in a freak, once-in-thirty-years snowstorm that virtually closed down Puglia in the early days of January 2019. Even funnier, after viewing the 35 properties, I ended up buying the very first one I’d seen.
I’ll never forget that first day getting from my friend’s house in Bagnolo del Salento, where I was staying, to Matino. It was not only my first time driving in Italy but doing so in a blizzard. I remember arriving relieved to be alive, exploring the house and then going up to see the roof terrace and only having around a metre of visibility in any direction. I viewed other great properties in different towns and villages over the following days but Matino kept sneaking back into my mind so I messaged Antonio, my lovely estate agent, to arrange a second inspection. It could not have been a more different day, with sunshine, warmth and infinite blue skies. I got to see Matino in all its glory: the air was so clear I could not only see the water of Baia Verde in the distance from the roof terrace, but also the snow-capped mountains of Calabria across the Ionian Sea. A third visit to view the property another week later more or less sealed the deal.
It was a tough choice, though, with a multitude of truly magical alternatives. (And I was gazumped on a gorgeous little village house in Minervino di Lecce before I submitted my offer on Matino but that’s another story!) One house, I think in Cutrofiano, had a beautiful procession of rooms over two floors and a roof terrace with views to die for, not to mention a massive sub-basement with a multi-vaulted ceiling and an enormous in ground water tank that would have made the most awesome indoor swimming pool.
And this was all in line with the idea I had in my mind in the build up to the trip. I envisaged buying a large and crumbling old house which I would restore slowly over years, as I grew tomatoes and drank local wine. But seeing these places I couldn’t imagine managing the project and enjoying the process (with my limited budget) while continuing to live and run a business in Australia, on the other side of the world. So I went for the slightly smaller but equally magical house with a section that had already been restored - and a miracle, by someone with great taste - with a whole other floor that can be restored down the track.
Still, there is the occasional “what if” moment, as there was when I look back over the photos of this sleeping beauty: the upper half of a beautiful old palazzo in Galatina. Always wanted an enfilade? This house had around four…
If you’re visiting Salento one day - and even better, staying with me - make sure to visit Galatina. The centro storico is really beautiful, like a miniature Lecce but without the hustle and bustle. There are great shops, including the bakery where the paticiotto was born in 1745, and delicious places to have lunch. (Let me know if you need recommendations.) But the jewel in Galatina’s crown is the 14th century Basilica de Santa Catarina with its murals so breathtakingly beautiful that upon entering the church for the first time, an English artist friend of mine was moved to tears. Galatina is around a 25 minute drive from Matino, through lovely countryside to the town’s position in the centre of the peninsula.
Chasing Visconti
I adore Il Gattopardo, or The Leopard, by Luchino Visconti. Based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s hit novel of the same name, the 1963 film recounts the final days of the Bourbon aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily and the ensuing rise of the mafia. Burt Lancaster stars as Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, alongside Alain Delon as the dashing Tancredi (the prince’s nephew) and Claudia Cardinale as the crude but ravishing Angelica (the daughter of a corrupt town offical). Both Delon and Cardinale were, at the time, at the very pinnacle of their youth and beauty and Lancaster cuts a figure as magnificent, yet doomed, as old Sicily itself. Like many Visconti films, The Leopard moves at an almost snail-like pace, a meditation of faded grandeur.
(Prior to the Risorgimento that unified Italy in 1861, Puglia formed a part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The realm, an extensive property portfolio that also encompassed Campania, Basilicata and Calabria, belonged to the Spanish Bourbon kings. It’s for this reason the palazzo containing La Dimora di Jason is the Spanish ‘de Maria’ rather than the Italian ‘di Maria’.)
I travelled to Sicily in the summer of 2000, just a few years after watching The Leopard for the first time. We were on a boat, which meant I missed the island’s hot and earthy heart that features so prominently in the film, as Don Fabrizio and his entourage move between one crumbling palace and another. I spent a good two weeks, however, exploring Syracuse, Taormina, Catania and the capital, Palermo, as well as the Aeolian Islands, the warmth and rustic richness forever imbedded in my itinerant DNA. Revisiting Visconti’s masterpiece ever since has been a series of wonderful experiences.
By chance I’m yet to return to Sicily although I’ve recently discovered the bucolic paradise that is Puglia. Salento - the tip of the heel of the Italian boot - reminds me of perhaps an even more rustic version of Sicily where, if you were to combine Lecce with Gallipoli, you might have Syracuse. Despite the difference in season, when I arrived in Lecce for the first time on New Years Day in 2019, I was suddenly transported back to Sicily: Roman ruins, Baroque architecture and olive trees, and being a peninsula, never too far from the sea.
I often wonder if Visconti, a native of Milan who lived most of his life in Rome, ever visited Puglia. He owned a villa on the island of Ischia, near Naples, so must have liked the south. And then there’s the obvious passion that went into The Leopard. Driving along the Adriatic coast south of Otranto or perhaps wandering the streets of Galatina, as the town sleeps in the afternoon, I can’t help but think of Visconti, imagining he might have loved it.
If you’d like to know a little more about this fascinating filmmaker, you can see the story I wrote for Vogue Living (Jul 2017) on www.jasonmowen.com or even better, while away a lazy afternoon watching The Leopard.
Palazzo dei Marchesi del Tufo, Matino
It all begins with an idea.
Matino is the ideal base to explore surrounding Salento, not to mention access the wonderful beaches and lidos of the Ionian Coast. But in a land so rich in art and history, the town may not spring immediately to mind as ‘top of the list’ of Puglia’s plethora of cultural hotspots. Competition, however, is stiff; within a 5 to 45 minute drive there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of Southern Italian marvels.
But like so many magical places, the layers of Matino reveal themselves slowly and it was only during the last day of my most recent visit that I finally had the opportunity to see inside Palazzo dei Marchesi del Tufo, located less than 100m from La Dimora di Jason. There is actually a great view of our roof terrace from the roof of the palazzo (the 10th photo from the top), not to mention all of Matino old town, the countryside and the coast. Entry is free, although only possible on a couple of mornings each week but if you’re lucky, as we were, you’ll have the place all to yourself.
Overlooking Piazza san Giorgio, the palazzo was constructed c.1500 over the ruins of a 13th-century fortress as the home of the feudal lords ‘del Tufo’ of Matino. Giuseppe del Tufo went from being a baron to a marquis in 1644 and a second phase of construction took place from 1711. It seems the palazzo’s stables were created at this time. Heavily frescoed, the stables are quite literally breath-taking and certainly one of the more hidden jewels of Salento. The long, vaulted room lined in depictions of domestic and exotic animals at play with cherubs and even a bishop, also features a line of niched mangers, for want of a better description. Each niche once contained the name of the horse that took its feed there, written in big serif letters just below a conch shell at the top of the arch. Only one remains - Velocipede - the name seemingly attesting to the horse’s speed (?) and the beautiful space attesting to the love of its master.
The palazzo contains around 40 rooms, many of which are open to the public as MACma, Matino’s contemporary art museum. There is also an extraordinary quarry under the palazzo although I think it warrants its own post! A big thank you to Secco Sistemi (seccosistemi.com) who recently crafted beautiful metal doors and windows for the Palazzo dei Marchesi del Tufo and very generously allowed me to use a couple of images - the first and last above - of the palazzo’s exterior to create this post.