The palace that is now home to La Fiermontina Palazzo Bozzi Corso was built in the heart of Lecce in 1775, commissioned by Marquis Gabriele Bozzicorso as a lasting symbol of memory and belonging.
It was designed by the architect Emanuele Manieri, one of the most refined interpreters of Lecce’s Baroque style, who succeeded in creating a rare balance between discipline and poetry.
Its austere façade, adorned with wrought-iron balconies, conceals an unexpected soul that reveals itself beyond the grand portal, in the entrance hall where curved lines, light and shadow seem to move like a theatrical set. A commemorative plaque in the vestibule records that the palace was raised “from its foundations” for Gabriele, for his son Federico, and for their descendants.
Probably built upon the remains of a sixteenth-century residence, the palace has crossed the centuries welcoming stories and noble families alike. After the Barons Bozzicorso, it passed to a member of the Schiavelli family, who sold it to Domenico Calà Ulloa y Lanzina, Duke of Lauria; from him it was inherited by Isidoro Rossi of Gallipoli. It later became the headquarters of the Banco di Napoli in 1868 and even served as the city’s municipal residence in 1873, before being sold in 1879 to the Counts Zecca of Leverano. Since 1984 it has belonged to the lawyer Vezio Vergine of Sogliano Cavour.
Each passage has left a discreet echo within its rooms, never altering its profound character. Today, thanks to the sensitive restoration envisioned by the Filali-Fiermonte family, the palace has been reborn as a place of hospitality and beauty, preserving intact that suspended atmosphere which still speaks of an aristocratic, secret and luminous Lecce.
