Palazzo Vulpano
This palace is a splendid example of Renaissance architecture in Puglia, with stylistic influences from Naples and Florence, and exudes a very particular charm. The men who commissioned it, Leucio and Giovan-Pasquale Vulpano, turned it into their home and in order to be remembered for all time, had their coat-of-arms carved into the ramp leading up to the master floor, comprising a fox with a book between its front paws, embellished with lilies, the emblem of the House of Anjou, their protector, and also the year when the building was completed, 1500. The proportions of the facade with its squared windows on the ground floor and the plastic richness of the golden agarics and indentations arouse particular admiration even though the building underwent various alterations such as the transformation of the windows on the first floor (which it may be presumed were equally beautiful and harmonious), into balconied windows which somewhat impaired the purity of the lines and of the lovely, delicate cornice that horizontally separates the two floors. In line with the central balconied window is encased a 'centinata" niche with a statue of the Archangel Michael, patron saint of the family. The entrance doorway is majestic, a veritable triumphal arch, rich in chiaroscuro effects, and austere for the purity of its lines, which extends to the full height of the ground floor with a delicately carved cornice, capitals in the 'a bocciolo" (buds) style above the vertical elements and delicate low reliefs in the triangular spaces between the cornices. The plinth base is made of rustic ashlarwork, and is bound in by a crowning bull. To reach the courtyard one must cross a vestibule with columns resting on Attic bases with Corinthian capitals and covered by a lunetted barrel vault bearing a painted coat-of-arms in the centre, of the Sylos-Labini family who now own the palace.
The doors leading into the ground floor rooms have doorposts and unframed architraves in white marble from carrara. Harmony and beauty reign in the interior courtyard: the columns, capítals, cornices and an elegant friez in the loggia are works of pure Classicism. In the squares of the loggia there are low reliefs showing figures from history: Scipio, Hannibal, Antoninus Pius and Nero, and in the smallest ones, the myth of Orpheus. Between the arch vaults there are high relief female figures representing the four cardinal Vi rtues. It is not known who created this masterpiece bur it was very likely executed by local craftsmen to designs by either a Tuscan, or as some believe, a Neapolitan artist.