Parabita preserve monuments and buildings going up again different historical epochs. Some of this are particularly meaningful: the castle, The mother church of San Giovanni Battista, Church Maria SS. Immacolata, Church Holy Mary of purgatory souls, Alcantarini convent, SS. Crucifix church, The Basil Santa Maria della Coltura, the monumental cemetery.

The castle

On the high part of the Parabita’s historical centre is situated the Angioino castle and dominates the actual Umberto I° square. A quadrangular plant with angular towers was built in the middle age (1200), restructured, strengthened and widened through the centuries. The actual castle conformation is the result of the lastremaking effected by the owner Raffaele Elia in the 1911 and the sketch of the architect Adolfo Avena di Napoli.

The mother church of San Giovanni Battista

The mother church of San Giovanni Battista was built probably on an old plinth going up again the thirteenth century. It has been restored and modified up to 1853, year when the principal church’s front was referred. The side door was built in the 1500 by Gabriele Riccardi. The octagonal base of the dome is interesting and it covers the presbytery. Noteworthy also the sacristy attached to the major altar and covered by eighteenth-century paintings showing sea city of salento (Porto Cesareo , Marina di Nardò, Sant’Isidoro, Marina di Gallipoli, Marina di Leuca, Marina di Castro). The mother church keeps the body of San Vincenzo martire, a relic given from Duchess Lucia la Greca in the 1851.

Church Maria SS. Immacolata

The church was probably built in the thirteenth century, but it assumed this actual shape in the mid seventeenth century. Inside there are wall painting and a baroque major altar that contrasted the external front.

Church Holy Mary of purgatory souls

It was built in the Parabita’s historical center in the 1783.There’s a wall painting representing Holy Mary of purgatory souls and it’s situated in a “leccese” stone. The structure is to unique aisle, with two partition for side, separated by a central pillar. The greatest altar introduces, around two sides, two columns in “leccese” stone overhung by a tympanum, also it carved in “leccese” stone. To the center of the altar is situated a painting, of unknown author, representing the Virgo of the Souls of the Purgatory. Under the church floor are preserved some ancient graves. In the choir is conserved a reed organ of the 1800.

Alcantarini convent

It was built in the first halves the 1700 by the monks of the San Pietro’s reform, a Franciscan order of strict observance, constituted in Spain in the first halves the sixteenth century. The Alcantarini monks arrived in Parabita in 1731. The convent, of essential beauty, expresses the order values: simplicity and humility. Windows of the monk’s cells are visible from the street prospect. The convent was lived by the monks until the 1866.

SS. Crucifix church

In the city the SS. Crucifix church is known how San Pasquale church and it’s next to Alcantarini convent. There are paintings representing San Pasquale Baylon and San Pietro d’Alcantara. Inside there’s a unique aisle and a painting on the baroque altar representing the SS. Crucifix. The altar, built in the 1837 is devoted to holy Filomena and it’s has been orderly by Lucia la Greca, duchess of Parabita; the neapolitan papier mache crab (1700), the reed organ and the majolica floor. In the 1839 in this church, Lucia la Greca has buried his son Giovanni Maria, the fourth last duke of Parabita.

The Basil Santa Maria della Coltura

The basil is devoted to Santa Maria della Coltura, procuress of Parabita. It was projected by the architect Napoleone Pagliarulo and built in the 1913, a Romanesque-gothic style with three nave. It preserve a byzantine monolith of the twelfth century, representing a paint of the virgin holds in arm the Child.

The monumental cemetery

The monumental cemetery of Parabita has benn finished in the 1982 and constituted an interest example of public architecture. Built on the base of the architects Alessandro Anselmi e Paola Chiatante project, which are part of GRAU (Group Romanesque Architect Urban), it has been realized with reinforced concrete and “carparo”, a local chalky stone. It’s a discussion object on the national and international magazines, and become reference point of the post-modern debate among the architects and urban planner.