SAINT LUCIA FAIR

Officially the Santa Lucia Fair, known in Lecce as the "fera de li pupi". The nativity scene people return to the historic spaces of the Ex-Convento dei Teatini in the heart of the city to light up the Christmas atmosphere. Once reserved for hobbyists and amateurs, today the fair showcases the best of handmade terracotta and papier-mâché artefacts often inspired by classic iconography, 19th century sets, and the sacred atmosphere of altar blades. The centuries-old exhibition, the jewel in the crown of the Municipality's Christmas events, thus keeps the link with tradition alive: the tradition born in the craftsmen's laboratories of the historic city centre's alleyways, where you can still breathe in the characteristic smell of the red-hot irons used to "forcheggiatura" of the papier-mâché sculptures.

There is no plastic, synthetic materials or industrial elements; only handmade works and nativity figures in terracotta, papier-mâché, nativity scenes, their accessories and Christmas objects in line with the Salento craft tradition cross the ex-monastery entrance threshold. Caves, Comets, 'Holy Families', Angels, Zampognari, Shepherds and Craftsmen of all kinds overflow from the stalls lined up under the portico and in the adjoining rooms on the ground floor of the Teatini. An infinite and varied humanity at once busy and motionless, immortalised by the hands of the craftsmen on an ordinary day in an ordinary century, unconsciously leaning towards the event that will change the destiny of the world.

 The Santa Lucia Fair can be visited from 8 to 23 December.

Opening times: weekdays 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.

Saturdays and public holidays 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.