The Courtyard Houses of Salento: Sleeping in History

In the heart of the most authentic Salento, life once flowed slowly, marked by the rhythms of the seasons and neighborly relationships. The courtyard houses, typical architecture of southern Puglia, were the hub of daily life: spaces shared by several families, where people lived in close contact not only with each other, but also with domestic animals, gathered in a single outdoor space, the courtyard, where the main activities of life in the past took place. In each courtyard there was always a well from which to extract water and a stone washhouse (pila) where women washed clothes. Modern comforts did not exist, toilets were absent and privacy was a remote concept. However, in that simple and harsh world, there was a deep sense of community, mutual support and adaptation to the land and climate.
As a living testimony of that time, in Alessano, in the province of Lecce, today Corte Manfredi comes back to life, one of the ancient Salento courtyards that has been expertly renovated. The refined design room that today welcomes guests was once an entire house, composed of a single room, where entire families with their numerous children lived – and survived – together with their animals. Today those same rooms have been restored respecting the original structure, without any architectural changes, but enriched with all contemporary comforts: air conditioning, home automation, refined furnishings, elegant finishes, modern bathrooms and highly refined details.

Staying at Corte Manfredi means living an immersive and authentic experience. Sleeping in two in a comfortable double bed, surrounded by a refined and welcoming aesthetic, but with the awareness that, in that same space, entire families once slept – on straw mattresses – together with chickens and donkeys, in hygienic conditions unimaginable today.

The invitation is to let yourself be enveloped by beauty, but also by memory. To imagine yourself there, among ancient stones and centuries-old vaults, star-shaped or barrel-shaped, in a distant but still living time.
Because Corte Manfredi is not just a place to stay: it is an open window on the history of Salento, to be experienced with all the senses, between past and present, between authenticity and wonder.