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by Olimpia Ruffo

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Cavallino (Lecce). The Mayor, Bruno Ciccarese Gorgoni, during an official ceremony

Small is beautiful. No other saying could suit Cavallino better, as this small town (fewer than 13,000 inhabitants) just outside Lecce, boasts an ecomuseum, a theater (“Il Ducale”), a sports ground, a magnificent gallery and some impressive churches and palazzos, as well as a calendar of cultural activities that a much larger town would be proud to have. A theater season that lasts from November to March, ”Estate Cavallinese”, a festival of cinema, dialect theater, music, dance and cabaret (from June to September), the Festival of Literature called “Ergo Sum” (November-December), “Libri a Palazzo” book fair (from October to March). And then the lesser patron saint’s festival Madonna del Monte (May), and the main patron saint’s festival San Domenico di Guzman (August). The cherry on the cake of this series of events is an art exhibition, usually inaugurated by Vittorio Sgarbi, who never turns down the opportunity to return to this delightful little town in Salento.

We asked the mayor of Cavallino, Bruno Ciccarese Gorgoni, how a small town manages to organize so many cultural events of such high quality…

Cavallino Town Hall has always regarded culture as a resource to be taken advantage of, so that it can turn into a means of development, both social and economic.  This has been the challenge that the Gorgoni-led administrations took up and won, causing Cavallino to be deservedly named “Town of Art and Culture”. In the light of this, the Town Council is careful when drawing up the calendar of events programmed for the whole year, which range from the presentation of books by renowned authors to exhibitions at a national level and the Theater Season with theater companies and actors of great prestige. 

How did the friendship between the Cavallino Town Hall and art critic Vittorio Sgarbi spring up, since he has inaugurated the art exhibitions held in Cavallino over the past few years?

It’s a bond that was forged in the years in which the Hon. Gorgoni was the Under-Secretary of Public Works and Vittorio Sgarbi was a member of Parliament. Because of this more than ten-year-long friendship and attracted by the artistic beauty of Cavallino as well as by the importance of the exhibitions organized by the Town Hall Sgarbi has shown his pleasure to be in Cavallino by attending each of them and cutting the inaugural ribbon.  

Does it pay to bet on culture? Apart from promoting the image of the town, do you manage to earn something from the long list of programmed events?  

Investing in culture is an enterprise for the competent and bold; it doesn’t yield immediate results but it does yield long-term ones, if you adopt a coherent plan with specific aims.

Investing in culture means encouraging the social growth of the community, it means raising awareness and enriching everyone’s legacy of knowledge, but it also turns into economic growth due to the spin-offs that every event organized generates around itself, especially regarding the hospitality and catering sector, which is the first to benefit from these operations.

What will be the event to attract the biggest audience in your town this summer?

The Cavallino Town Council was among the first to want a program of summer events, whose purpose is not only to enliven the evenings of those people who don’t move to the seaside resorts in summer and choose to stay in town, but, also, thanks to the quality and variety of the performances we put on, we aim to attract an influx of spectators from outlying towns and above all, from nearby Lecce. Every year, in fact, there are many tourists who stay in the provincial capital and choose to attend the shows that make up the “Estate Cavallinese” in the evenings. The whole bill of summer events has considerable appeal. 

If you were to suggest three good reasons for an Italian or foreign tourist to visit Cavallino what would you say?

First of all, I would advise them to visit the Ecomuseum which houses an important Messapian settlement within a large fortification works and the ancient town structure that the fortification belongs to, and it is built on top of settlements from previous epochs. 

Then I would invite them to visit the sumptuous gallery in the Castromediano Ducal Palace, which was built at the behest of Marquis Francesco Castromediano, with the splendid frescoes by Francesco Florio which represent the twelve constellations and the statues by Palermo sculptor Carlo Aprile that represent the Virtues. Last but not least, I would invite them to spend some time in the splendid new Piazza Castromedino, with its original backdrop of the castle of the Castromediano family and the Church of the Assumption surmounted by the bell-tower with its oriental-style spire. 

Cavallino. Convent of the Dominicans 

Cavallino. The Ecomuseum

Cavallino. Porta San Giorgio

Cavallino. Gallery of the Castromediano Ducal Palace