Pietra Leccese is a type of limestone, known for being the warm, malleable stone that gave Lecce – one of Italy’s most visually distinctive cities – its unique architectural personality. Found only in a small area of southern Italy’s Salento peninsula, this creamy, golden-hued stone was the true lifeblood of construction in the region, particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries when Lecce emerged as a southern capital of Baroque architecture.

Easily carved yet remarkably resilient, pietra Leccese has been both a practical building material and an artistic medium for centuries, and its legacy is very much alive today. Geologically speaking, pietra Leccese is a fine-grained limestone that formed during the Miocene epoch, between 23 and 5 million years ago.