Description
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 days.
The facade is a modest Baroque: a facing of carparo tuff with a few stone inserts, niches, pinnacles and scrolls. Inside, on either side of the high altar, hang two canvases by Diego Bianchi: Saint Joseph and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.
The most curious painting is the 17th-century Nativity in the first chapel on the right: it shows the Salento costumes of the time, almost a record of how people here dressed back then.
The church was founded in 1670 thanks to the priest Francesco Monetta, for the convent of the Discalced Carmelites, and was dedicated to Saint Joachim. After the convent was suppressed, in 1807 the complex became a military base; since its restoration in the 1980s it has housed the State Archives.
The facade is a modest Baroque: a facing of carparo tuff with a few stone inserts, niches, pinnacles and scrolls. Inside, on either side of the high altar, hang two canvases by Diego Bianchi: Saint Joseph and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.
The most curious painting is the 17th-century Nativity in the first chapel on the right: it shows the Salento costumes of the time, almost a record of how people here dressed back then.
The church was founded in 1670 thanks to the priest Francesco Monetta, for the convent of the Discalced Carmelites, and was dedicated to Saint Joachim. After the convent was suppressed, in 1807 the complex became a military base; since its restoration in the 1980s it has housed the State Archives.