Reading Lecce's Streets – 23/10/2020

On October 23rd, 2020, Circolo Berkeley met at Manifatture Knos in Lecce to hear a talk by Peter Byrne about what he'd noticed as an English-speaker living and, more specifically, walking around the streets of Lecce. I was not at Manifatture Knos myself and, too modest by half, Peter did not review his own talk, but what follows are the notes Peter prepared in advance and recently shared with me. Luigi Di Castri, Lecce, April 2026

THE PAST
About Lecce’s storied past and present attractions, I’m not going to speak. We all know about its glorious baroque architecture. My interest will be in what I’ve noticed as an English-speaking stroller, what the French call a ‘flâneur’ Remember that Bishop Berkeley, our favourite Anglo-Irishman, liked the city well enough when he passed this way in 1716. Arriving at midnight he had to wait a while for someone to open the gate. The only street life he reported on was the procession of Corpus Domini with its effigies of saints, flags, banners, sumptuously draped priests, marching soldiers, everyone in their Sunday best amidst a god-awful racket of music and firecrackers. The good Bishop surveyed the architecture and quickly left town in pursuit of his obsession with the naughty spider that provoked the tarantula contortions. Forward to 1910 when Martin Shaw Briggs published, the first thick and solid book about Lecce in English, 382 pages entitled ‘In the Heel of Italy, a Study of an Unknown City.’ Briggs was a British architect and his interests were architecture and history. About the Villa, or central park, he commented that it was, “in no way remarkable.” About the statuary there of the city’s worthies, he said, “They are of no great merit, and in many cases are idealised and even imaginary portraits.” Briggs was no flâneur, put off perhaps by a Lecce man he describes as “a tout in sheep’s clothing” and whom he suspected of dire intentions. Briggs does note, “carts hawking water through the streets in large cans.” He also reports that “…processions of long-robed figures are constantly to be seen in the Lecce streets, troops of little boys or girls, with perhaps a Father or Sister in charge, passing to some church….” Briggs also says that he was startled in the streets by coming on life-size papier-mâché (carta-pesta) statues, little groups of painted saints set out in the sun to dry.

SIGNAGE
But it’s Lecce streets today I’m interested in, not those of 1716 or 1910. What strikes an English-speaker most about shop-front signage is the frequency of English. This is strange because unlike, say, the Netherlands or Finland, not many locals know English. In Lecce the English words on the shop fronts are not an English that is always clear to native English speakers. What, for instance, is suggested on a barber shop by “alternative hair design”? A wigmaker’s maybe, implants for the bald, not a place for a shave and a haircut. The sign “hair shop” is no clearer and sticks in your throat. “Ladies and Gentlemen” on a barbershop could designate a unisex harem or a public lavatory. The meaning of “beauty hub” can be guessed at but recalls one of those spots 18th century wannabe beauties pasted on their faces.

Lecce commerce has suffered a veritable invasion of the word “outlet.” Some shopkeepers latch on to the true meaning, drastically reduced prices, and have an adjunct to their store called “space outlet.” Well and good. But other merchants aren’t aware that in Anglo-Saxon parts the word on a store means low-rent, make do, shoddy but cheap, next step to the incinerator. So they embellish their shopfront with “outlet” in arty letters as if it were a synonym for high-priced luxury goods. English on bars and watering-holes invites us to share a dream. But the huge letters “Mood Café” perplex rather than draw me in. After all, “bad mood” is a common expression in English. Walking past, I repeat to myself, “Sorry, I’m in no mood to meet you at the Mood.”

And “Road 66” is a long road to travel from Lecce for a beer.

Why the “Blue Star Bar”? Because even the most banal and unoriginal name suggests quality and romance if it’s in English. One bar, aiming more at a drinks clientele, simply says, “New York,” nothing more on its front. The word on its own is meant to conjure up atmosphere, a drinks’ culture. A thousand dubbed American movies are behind that. “Caffetteria,” when used for a simple bar serving coffee can confuse native English speakers. A cafeteria for them is a restaurant where you pass in a line with your tray before a display full of food, hot and cold, and make your choices. One food shop has a sign aimed at tourists that says, “Unconventional local food.” The English is perfect but confusing. All local food would be unconventional for a tourist, n’est-pas? A “Take and Go Self” is just as ambiguous, suggesting an invitation to shoplift or a quick look into your psyche. One shop actually offering to straighten you out mentally bears the mysterious sign, “Be Mind.” And you wonder what a local with little English would make of “The Healing Power of Plankton.” Often we get the message of a sign while feeling that the tone is all wrong. Thus for a gift shop, “Gift Factory,” makes us think of an assembly line and heavy machinery. “Everytime Travel,” on a travel agent’s is English alright, but somehow wrong. “Salento Rent,” on an estate agent’s, sounds like a battlecry for a street demonstration, No pasaràn! A fine art shop does nothing for its reputation by putting one of its services into its name, “Shipin Arte.” Cheery messages in English are sometimes posted when a shop is being renovated for a new opening. They seem to have come from the renovating specialists and ultimately from abroad. Neither the people posting them or the passing public understands these sunny messages in U.S. business-speak. One I like, probably a translation, says, “Stiamo scrivendo un nuovo capitolo, prossima apertura.” “We are writing a new chapter for you, opening soon.” But nothing more has happened in six months. Pages are turning yellow and writer’s block has set in. I heard locals, bless them, making fun of this. Such confusions from one language to another aren’t worth labouring too much and probably are inevitable considering the world-wide dominance of English. We find them as well in Italy’s major cities.

GRAFFITI
Graffiti, or unauthorised messages posted on walls by individuals, are for me a more revealing street phenomenon. More than misuse of language, they tell us about those who take the pains to inscribe them. Graffiti have a glorious past. When one is discovered at Pompeii, it’s like finding a Roman tiara. Technical progress means an advance in literacy. Anyone with a can of aerosol spray paint can now be a writer. A graffitist—new word— is in fact called a “writer” in urban lingo. This is certainly a sign of our times. Forget Nobel Laureates, writers are now people who make marks on our walls.

In my first fleeting visits to Lecce in the early 1980s, that is to say, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was struck by the radical nature of what I read on the walls. There were hammers and sickles and revolutionary political slogans in quantity referring to Italian and international issues as if they were vital in Lecce. They made me think the city was a hotbed of Leftism. With time, I learned more and had to change my mind. Not so many years before Lecce had voted for the monarchy. With little industry, there were no strong labour unions. The leftwing graffiti was mainly the exuberance of the livelier students adopting fashionable fantasies and engaging in the eternal rebellion against their parents. Here we should note the tone or tenor of the centre of Lecce that serves as the blackboard, so to speak, for graffiti. The atmosphere isn’t working-class or upper middle-class and certainly not aristocratic. A lower middle-class decorum reigns that could be personified by a housewife. She is, above all, clean and neat, even scrubbed. She fears extravagance like the pest and, for her, eccentricity leads to trouble and a disruption of spotlessness and order. This mindset sees graffiti only as a blemish, a muddy boot mark on a polished floor. It sees spontaneous, free-wheeling, outlaw writing as annoying petty crime. It is precisely the attitude that has made some cities of the world try to tame graffiti by assigning it to a designated area. This is much like the same cities creating toilet areas for dogs. But graffiti legitimised is not graffiti. Since the 1980s these Lecce graffitists or ‘writers’ have undergone a marked change. They have forsaken not only larger political concerns but also old-fashioned sentiments. Even around schools, you no longer find graffiti of the “John-Loves-Mary” type. I have found some: “Kiki ti amo,” and “Io ti amo Giacomo mio." But today John would more likely put Mary’s nude photo online. I fear American teens no longer carve such pledges of eternal love on the bark of oaks, confident that the tree would grow, bark harden, but the heart pierced by an arrow remain. So what are Lecce’s young writing on the walls nowadays. Simply their mark, what they call their “signature”. They strive to find a striking personal-logo and sprinkle it over the city. Some of these signatures show ingenuity and graphic know-how, some do not. All of them do show immense self-satisfaction with the writer who announces his street presence as if it’s a matter of public importance. This plague of signatures without statements doesn’t surprise sociologists who have been telling us for some time now that we are in the midst of a look-at-me era when individuals feel their existence as an individual is a cause for civic celebration. What they stand for is simply themselves. To share the spotlight with others or with social-political issues would only diminish the focus of these narcissists on themselves. Their logos figure their writer name, which is almost always English or foreign, but concocted by an Italian speaker: “Lucy, cat, nook, Cuba, Spout, Ekos, Nuck" (but with the N reversed), “Speck, chaos, Maddy, Peku" (with an umlaut on the u). Nevertheless, in some corners of the city, a more vintage narcissism survives, poetry. There are two twenty-line poems in correct and stiff Italian opposite San Matteo church, via Perroni, in the Centro Storico. They are neatly inscribed on the slats of descending shutters that I have never seen raised. They have been there undisturbed for several years now. There is more poetry in via Palmieri, again on the front of a deserted shop and again undisturbed for years. The poet introduces himself in antique fashion and posts two rather formal poems in very careful black lettering that suggest Gothic or German script. Now Leccese householders are great destroyers of graffiti. They scrub it out fiercely or, if feeling less energetic, simply make it illegible by deforming the letters with black bars in a kind of anti-graffiti graffiti. So the longevity of these poems needs an explanation. Was it a respect for literature or literacy? Or did the aura of San Matteo’s Church extend to the creaking shudder opposite? In via Palmieri the ghost of a remembered bookshop and publisher among the patrician residences may have generated respect for poetry there. Lecce graffiti is not without relics of a socio-politico world outlook. The “Antifa,” opposition to Fascism sign appears, but only as a signature. A group called, “Biblioteca Anarchica Disordine” regularly posts printed sheets inveighing against capitalism and militarism. These are more full articles than scribbled battlecries. I love their title, a library being a place of high order, Dewey Decimal Classification and so forth. However, their postings suggest university archives more than the unbridled spirit of graffiti. The same goes for the occasional copies of iconic 1970s posters that are put up, recalling events like the massacre of Piazza Fontana. These can be beautiful but are more like family heirlooms than fiery graffiti concerned with today. Classic graffiti still crops up: “Il stupratore non e malato, è il figlio de la patriarchi.” “The rapist isn’t sick, he’s the son of the patriarchy.” Here we ask ourselves whether it was a woman who wrote it or a son who was heaping blame on his father. And irony, the spice of graffiti, isn’t dead. “Remember to call your mother,” was written in English on a sidewalk in front of a school. It’s self-satire of Italian family culture. Would the writer have posted it in Italian? I rather like, “The world is yours” in English, because it’s signed “Scarface”. We have to conclude that Lecce graffiti, never very fertile, has now withdrawn to personal affirmations and local issues. Football fans, especially the ultras, or fan-fanatics flex their muscles and decry attempts to control them by entry cards. The “TAP,” Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, is opposed. Nasty neighbours are nastily cursed by nasty anonymous householders.

WALL ART
We are currently in a golden age of street art and outdoor murals, which started like graffiti with wildcat artists painting unauthorised pictures in public places on any available surface. Now the practice has become quasi-legitimate and even encouraged by municipal authorities around the world. If you Google “Cuban outdoor murals” you will be astonished at the size and intricacy of some murals that can cover whole sides of tall buildings. The absence of these in Lecce is partly due to the lack of suitable surfaces. The city of Chicago, for instance, has endless straight and broad alleys behind its houses lined with garages. The garage doors, large and blank, make perfect canvases and artists have painted miles of them, making drive-through art galleries. Elsewhere the works of the mysterious British artist Banksy are often stolen from the walls of derelict sites. His aerosol depiction of members of Parliament as chimpanzees recently sold for eleven million euros. If Lecce’s sense of decorum has held that tradition in check, it hasn’t barred the pavement to art, maybe because it’s so easily erased there. On the roadway by the Apollo Theatre you can often find a female pavement artist at work. She specialises in madonnas, giving them eyes with very unreligious lashes, as if her other job was at the “Beauty Hub.” The rare man she draws has a clerical look. Are only religious figures worthy to be walked on in Lecce? She accepts contributions. One of the unheralded charms of Lecce’s quieter streets are the three-by-four-foot glass-fronted religious shrines. They usually depict a madonna figure and may include a tiny lamp and flowers, true or artificial. What’s remarkable is that I have never seen one of these vandalised. It’s also surprising that their homey, folkloric touch hasn't been commercialised yet or offered for sale to tourists.

VENDERS AND PEDLARS
An unmissable, you might say unavoidable part of street life are the sellers. If ambulant, i.e., pedlars, they are most often black or brown recent arrivals. As you carefully prepare a non-aggressive no-thank you for them you are prone to reviewing their probable history. Did they wash up on the coast in a makeshift craft? Did they have to pay people smugglers? Were they under the strict control of a cruel middleman? Where did they sleep last night? Was their family, who had financed their voyage from another continent, waiting for them to succeed and send back remittances? Would they encourage their siblings to join them? Were they actually as hungry as they said? After this silent review, you are ready to utter your, “No, I don’t need another cigarette lighter. I haven’t smoked for half a century.” Occasionally, a pedlar is Italian. In which case he or she is a bit embarrassed, like your black-sheep uncle who has disgraced the family, as he offers you a pack of two-dozen socks, not your size. More sedate are the sellers, foreign or Italian, sitting before makeshift displays either of imported goods or handicraft. The latter have increased no end since tourism has surged. They are sometimes disguised as gay-nineties artists in Latin Quarter hats.

BUSKERS
Another category of street life is busking or performing for passers-by in the hope they will offer a contribution for their pleasure. The response of Lecce natives is quite different from what I’ve seen in large, busy cities where such performances often garner a quick knowing glance of boredom. Leccese are instead often ill at ease, embarrassed, and hurry by, pretending there’s nothing there to see. The sight of a motionless art student, for instance, dressed up as a tree and painted silver in one of their familiar streets is too much for them to handle, other than on television. The children are different, loitering wide-eyed, entranced. One Lecce regular is a little man with his piano on wheels. He alternates between a dozen preferred niches in the central area determined, I suppose, by thick foot traffic and acoustics. So it’s always a pleasant surprise when you come into the range of his music. He does piano numbers a notch above easy-listening. No pop, no jazz and no jerks or chops of the post 1960s. You have to admire how true he remains to himself. I would be disappointed if he changed his repertoire. He has added one novelty in 2020, a homemade sign on brown paper. In big letters it says ARTELIBERA. Nevertheless, a collection plate is under the sign. Other buskers come and go. At Christmas a vintage local accordionist creeps out. In the summer months a comely student Miss may hover around her troubadour and his guitar. A solitary drummer may begin thumping and disturb the dreams of the sleeping dog at his feet.

BEGGARS AND TRICKSTERS
If a beggar is black African, it’s always interesting to learn what service he will offer to show he’s not a 100 per cent beggar. He may hold a shop door open for you, wish you good luck in finding a parking place or return your shopping cart for you. He’s only an amateur. If he or she is an East European expect smooth professionalism, not a word spoken and perhaps a classic pose of a draped, geriatric mother figure, no telling what’s under the drape. I should mention a fit young man, with a markedly Roma—I shouldn’t say gypsy face—who for several years now has patrolled as if he owns it the stretch between Piazza Sant’Oronzo and Piazza Mazzini. The style of native Salento beggars, far from wordless or laconic, is operatic, overflowing with loud words. They aim at an image of a dear old mother or a pater familias crushed by years. I shall mention only one confidence trick, because I was once its victim. A man came towards me with a smile broad as a sunrise, “Dottore!” I couldn’t place him. But by the warmth of his greeting he could have been a long lost brother. I thought I had better play along. He could be one of my wife’s large family or someone who had done me a crucial favour in the past. I smiled back. In no time he was trying to sell me sweaters his car was full of. If I didn’t need a dozen of those, he would gladly accept a loan. For some reason I always think of this con-trick originating in Naples.

MISCELLANEA
After many years away from Lecce when I returned in 2005, several things surprised me: The omnipresence off dogs on leashes and several canine beauty shops. Tattoo parlours (not for dogs). Café terraces. Less cinema, less traditional culture, more take-away prepared food. Many new, bars and restaurants often empty of customers, and a great increase in automobiles and less and less places to park them. You may have noticed a grooved yellow path set into some of central Lecce’s sidewalks. It’s marked, over and over again “Lion’s Club Lecce host.” This apparently means they paid for it and invite you to walk on it. But it’s meant to help the blind who won’t be reading the offer. Despite much observation, I have only ever once seen a sightless person accept the invitation. She was a chubby-faced woman armed with a stick that ended in an illuminated globe. However, she had no need for the yellow path since she was guided by a companion on her arm.

DEATH NOTICES
Till now our survey of Lecce street life has shown it to be a mere whisper in comparison to the raucous goings-on, not only in major cities elsewhere but even in some smaller ones. However, when we turn to consider the notices that are posted on the homes or workplaces of the overnight dead, Lecce street life roars like a Rossini or Verdi Requiem. These bold-lettered, acclamatory posters astonish outsiders. You can see them elsewhere in the south. There are smaller formats in Greece. What surprises in unpunctual Lecce is the speed with which they are posted. The dear-departed hasn’t had time to cool before he is headline news. No local means of communication, even back-fence gossip, is more rapid or efficient. It’s as if there has been no need to hurry in life, but death calls for the upmost speed. More astonishing still is the verbal formulae of the obituary posters. The deceased is mentioned only once, often by a familiar first name. Then no more is heard of him as the poster hangs him onto his family tree. None of his relatives have any more individual humanity than he does. They are simply son, daughter, mother, father, cousin, aunt and so on. There is no neutrality or objectivity. Forget lives actually lived. Every dear departed has been loved without limits and will be mourned with the same verbal intensity by his adoring family connections. Each of the lamented wears a halo polished by collective tears. Let’s not speak of hypocrisy but of frozen verbal expressions. The stroller through Lecce yearns for a poster that would safeguard his sanity by admitting that just one dear late citizen had made a mistake or two in his life. How different this poster population of purely formal relations, these abstract beings, are from the Leccese we know, quirky, sometimes bullheaded, often sharp tongued, but generally ‘bon enfant' in his or her own individual way. Let me warn English speakers who may be as nonplussed as I was when I first read the expression on one of these posters. “Cara Conjunctiva” is not a reference to the subjunctive mood of the verb. It means a man’s wife. I suppose, in some marriages the bride is something like a subordinate clause.

Peter Byrne