Lecce baroque: graffitti alley and San Giovanni Battista, 1691

…in super baroque style are intricately carved into local honey Lecce limestone covering every available square millimeter of each billboard-like neighborhood church facade, and parts of almost all of the pallazzi, announcing the style, taste and riches of the local sponsoring noble family – is the visual pleasure of the city to be enjoyed at every turn – but the sharp turn I took off Piazza San Oronzo this morning on a wandering derive brought me to a narrow isolated otherwise forgotten passage covered entirely in brightly colored amateur graffiti, and what would seem reckless elsewhere, here feels like a gorgeous collective contemporary baroque decoration where modern residents can announce their own messages.