The Roman Columns are the symbol of Brindisi: at the top of the rise overlooking the harbor stands a marble column nearly 19 meters tall, left alone after its twin collapsed. As early as the 14th century the two columns were the city's coat of...
Brindisi Cathedral, dedicated to the Visitation and to Saint John the Baptist, towers over Piazza Duomo in the heart of the old town. Kings were crowned and imperial weddings celebrated here: it's worth a visit for its history and for the...
The Monument to the Italian Sailor is a gigantic golden stone rudder about 53 meters tall, on the shore of Brindisi's harbor opposite the old town. It honors the Italian sailors lost at sea, and from the top you can see the whole...
The Francesco Ribezzo Provincial Archaeological Museum in Brindisi, on Piazza Duomo, gathers what the subsoil of the city and the province has given back, from the Messapians to the Romans. The stars are the bronzes recovered from the sea, but...
Piazza Duomo is the religious heart of Brindisi's old town, bringing together some of its most important monuments in just a few yards. Facing this small space are the cathedral, the Baroque Seminary palace and the medieval loggia that serves as...
The Swabian Castle of Brindisi, also called the Castello di Terra, is the great fortress Frederick II had built at the edge of the old town, overlooking the inner harbor. Massive and stern, it tells eight centuries of the city's military...
The Tempietto di San Giovanni al Sepolcro is a round Romanesque church in Brindisi's old town, built in Norman times in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It's no longer used for worship, but you can visit it: a small, mysterious...
The Portico of the Knights Templar is a medieval loggia in Piazza Duomo, Brindisi, next to the cathedral: two Gothic arches of carparo that now serve as the entrance to the Ribezzo Archaeological Museum. It's worth a look even just passing...
The Castello Alfonsino, also called the Castello Rosso or Castello di Mare, is the fortress on the island of Sant'Andrea, at the entrance to Brindisi's harbor. The name Castello Rosso, "Red Castle," comes from the vermilion color of its carparo...
The Church of San Benedetto is a Romanesque church in Brindisi's old town: an austere 11th-century building with a massive bell tower, a portal carved with dragons and a quiet cloister, the last remnant of an ancient convent of Benedictine...
The Church of San Paolo Eremita is the large Gothic church of the Franciscans in Brindisi's old town, built between the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Thoroughly restored in 2017 and 2018, it now houses the diocesan museum: outside it has...
Palazzo Balsamo is a 14th-century palace a stone's throw from Piazza Duomo in Brindisi, famous for its loggia: a stone balcony suspended above two pointed arches, held up by carved corbels. It's worth a stop for its sculptures, which you'll have...
The San Pietro degli Schiavoni Archaeological Area is a piece of Roman Brindisi preserved beneath the Teatro Verdi, in the heart of the old town: an entire block of the ancient city, with streets, houses and baths, that you can visit because the...
Palazzo Granafei-Nervegna is an elegant Renaissance palace on Via Duomo, in Brindisi's old town, now a cultural space for the city. People come mainly to see the original capital of the Roman Columns up close, displayed in one of its...
The Teatro Verdi is Brindisi's main theater, in the old town: a large modern building raised above the ruins of a Roman neighborhood, which is why it's called the "suspended theater." People come for the plays and shows on the program, but also...
The Fontana De Torres is the monumental fountain in Piazza della Vittoria, Brindisi's main square. Built in 1618 to bring water to a city struck by epidemics, it's a small monument to a Spanish governor and to the ancient Roman...
The Bastione San Giacomo is a five-sided fortress on the edge of Brindisi's old town, built on a natural promontory. It's one of the few surviving pieces of the old walls: restored in 2010, it's owned by the city and hosts exhibitions and...
The Scalinata Virgiliana is the grand staircase on Brindisi's waterfront, named after the house of Virgil that once stood here. The poet of the Aeneid died in Brindisi in 19 BC, shortly after returning from a journey to Greece.
On the...
The Chiesa del Cristo, also known as the Church of the Crucifix or of San Domenico, is a 13th-century church in Brindisi's old town. You'll recognize it by its facade striped in white and gray stone, and it holds two of the most remarkable...
The Church of Santa Lucia, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is one of the oldest parishes in Brindisi, in the old town. Outside it is plain, with a gabled facade; inside it keeps medieval frescoes and, beneath the floor, a painted crypt from the...
Palazzo Montenegro is a Baroque palace in central Brindisi, now the residence of the Prefect. It was built in the second half of the 17th century by a well-to-do merchant family of Montenegrin origin, who also took their surname from their...
The walls of Brindisi are what remains of the circuit that defended the city for centuries: gates, bastions and towers scattered among the houses of the old town. Messapians, Romans, Swabians, Aragonese and Spaniards all left their mark on them,...
The Monument to Virgil is Floriano Bodini's large white marble sculpture in the gardens of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, on Brindisi's waterfront. It looks out toward the eastern sea, in the city where the poet of the Aeneid died in 19...
Porta Lecce is one of the surviving gates of Brindisi's old walls, second in importance only to Porta Mesagne. Ferdinand of Aragon had it built, it was completed in 1464, and Emperor Charles V strengthened it in 1530 with forts and curtain...
The Fontana dei Delfini is the 19th-century marble fountain in the gardens of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, on Brindisi's waterfront facing the harbor. It makes a pleasant little stop during a stroll by the sea.
In the middle of a round,...
The Meridiana del Porto is the sundial on the south wall of the Harbor Master's building in Brindisi. It was made in 1917 by Enrico Alberto d'Albertis, a Genoese navigator and keen builder of sundials.
Beneath the dial runs a motto...
The Hotel Internazionale is a grand 19th-century building in Brindisi born with the Indian Mail, the train and steamship line that from 1870 to 1914 linked London to Bombay by way of this very Apulian port.
Its guests included sovereigns,...
The Casa del Turista is a building in Brindisi's old town that owes its name to the tourist board once based here. It is part of a very old block: in the Middle Ages the church and guesthouse of the Knights of Saint John stood here.
The...
Palazzo Dionisi is an elegant Venetian-style residence in central Brindisi, overlooking the little square of the same name, near the waterfront. You'll recognize it by its richly decorated facade; with its terraces and gardens it covers 1,250...
The Fontana Tancredi, also called Fonte Grande, is a monumental medieval fountain at the gates of Brindisi, on the route of the ancient Via Traiana, now the provincial road to San Vito, just before you enter the city. A Norman king had it built...
The Church of Santa Teresa is a 17th-century Baroque church overlooking the square of the same name in Brindisi, raised above the waterfront. It's worth a stop for its understated facade and for a few canvases that tell of the Salento of those...
The Giovanni Tarantini Diocesan Museum gathers the treasures of the Church of Brindisi inside the church of San Paolo Eremita. It's worth a visit for some highly prized medieval objects, linked to Frederick II and to the patron saint, Saint...
Brindisi's War Memorial honors those who died in World War I, in Piazza Santa Teresa above the waterfront: it's a group in white Carrara marble by the Brindisi-born sculptor Edgardo Simone, commissioned by the city.
Finding it a home was...
The Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli is the Baroque church that Saint Lawrence of Brindisi had built in his hometown, in Piazza Angeli. Inside it keeps the saint's mementos, including the crucifix he carried into battle against the...
The Seminary Palace is the archiepiscopal seminary of Brindisi, in Piazza Duomo, the Cathedral square. Its facade, completed in 1720, is considered the finest example of Baroque in the city.
The facade has eight allegorical statues:...
The Niccolò Tommaseo Naval College is a Rationalist building in Brindisi, built between 1934 and 1937 to a design by the architect Gaetano Minnucci. It appeals to lovers of 1930s architecture, and is to be seen from the outside.
It was...
The Birthplace of Cesare Braico is Palazzo Poli, in Brindisi, where the doctor and patriot who set off with Garibaldi's Thousand was born in 1816. A plaque on the facade remembers him: a short stop, for a story worthy of a novel.
The...
Palazzo Guerrieri, once Massa - De Leo, is an 18th-century palace in Brindisi, on Via Congregazione. It's worth a stop for the portal with the coat of arms of the families who lived here and for the Roman and medieval remains found beneath its...
The Fontana dell'Impero is a monumental fountain from 1940 at the foot of Piazza Santa Teresa, on the Brindisi waterfront: a marble front with stern lines, between the two flights of steps that climb to the square, with the regime's dedication...
The Fontana delle Ancore is the monumental fountain of Piazza Cairoli, in Brindisi: it's made of Trani stone, it's the work of the artist Gaetano Lepore and it dates from 1937, the last of three fountains that followed one another in the...