Lecce - Abbazia di Santa Maria di Cerrate

According to legend, the abbey was founded at the end of the 12th century by Tancredi d'Altavilla, Count of Lecce, because here, during a hunting trip, the Madonna appeared in Tancredi in the antlers of a deer. Most scholars agree, that the abbey was founded in the 11th century by Boemondo d'Altavilla. It was inhabited by Byzantine monks who had fled the Turkish persecutions in Byzantium.
In the 16th century, it passed to Florence Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi, who donated the complex to the "Ospedale degli Incurabili" in Naples (Hospital of the Incurable), which converted it into a farm. In 1711 the abbey was sacked by Turkish pirates and fell into a state of neglect that lasted until the restoration in 1965.

Recent archaeological excavations showed that activities had taken place on the site since the early Middle Ages. The discovery of numerous postholes and of tombs dated to the end of the 7th or 8th century, suggests that the monastic settlement may have been established well before the Norman period. Unfortunately, the former abbey, now a museum, was locked.

On the left side of the former monastery church there is also a portico from the 13th century. It is decorated with columns with some interesting capitals.

A centaur (man/horse hybrid) with bow and arrow pursues a mantacore (man/lion hybrid). An arrow is already stuck in the mantacore's foreleg.