DIVINE VILLAGES

Territorial promotion between culture, food and wine and identity

Borghi Divini is a journey through time and space, among stones that whisper legends, flavours that preserve memory and landscapes that invite slowness. It is a cultural and social regeneration project born in the villages of Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello, with the aim of enhancing their identity, environmental and creative vocations.

The perspective is that of territorial promotion: a choral tale that focuses on communities, places and traditions, interweaving past and future. Minervino and Giuggianello, despite their uniqueness, share a common thread: the ability to preserve a millenary heritage - cultural, archaeological, landscape - and to renew it in a contemporary key through authentic and inclusive experiences.

Around two symbolic places - the Convent of the Reformed Fathers and Palazzo Lubelli - activities designed to give voice to the territory unfold: from the Park of Giants and Fairy Tales, which interweaves myths and nature, to the International Film Campus, which has reinterpreted the village as a narrative set, to the calendar of St. Joseph's Tables, which renews the profound sense of sharing every year.

With workshops, experiential routes, events, exhibitions, walks among megaliths and tastings under the stars, Borghi Divini invites tourists and curious travellers and local communities to meet on a common ground: that of beauty to be experienced and preserved.

The various activities related to the development of the area, envisaged by the Borghi Divini PNRR Project - M1C3 - Investment 2.1 'Village Attractiveness', are: The Park of Giants and Fairy Tales; The Tables of San Giuseppe; Palazzo Lubelli - Archeo Hub; The Convent of the Reformed Friars; Borgo Food & Wine; Dolmen Short Film Contest.

Borgo Food & Wine
Professional looks, authentic experiences

In the heart of Borghi Divini is born Borgo Food & Wine, an itinerary designed to tell the story of the territory by taste, stories and the people who inhabit it. An experience with attention to detail, aimed at those who work with narration, promotion, wine and food culture.
As a premise, a scouting in the field, to select the places, companies and experiences capable of conveying the soul of the territory: vineyards, farms, dishes, stories. Everything that, when put in relation, can become a choral and conscious tale. The culmination of the activity was a press tour, designed to welcome journalists, bloggers and storytellers on a slow journey between Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello: meetings with producers, narrated tastings, walks among the dry stone walls, conversations under the olive trees. A different way of doing promotion: experiential, direct, human. Because wine and food, here, are not products: they are landscape, time, identities that are told.

ACTIVATION OF SUPRA-LOCAL NETWORKS AND SYSTEMS
Connections that generate culture

Borghi Divini is not a project to be jealously protected: it is a proposal to be shared. Because culture, in order to grow, needs to circulate, confront and contaminate. It is from this vision that the intervention dedicated to the activation of supra-local networks and systems was born: a strategy of openness, comparison and growth.

The objective is twofold: on the one hand, to bring the villages of Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello out of the confines of the 'local' to include them in cultural and tourist circuits of national and international level; on the other, to strengthen the skills of the area's operators through targeted training, exchange of best practices and the building of strategic alliances.

Promoted in cooperation with the Fitzcarraldo Foundation, the line of action includes:
- empowerment actions for local cultural realities, with skills assessment, needs analysis and customised training pills;
- activation of local and extra-local networks, through participation in platforms such as ArtLab and meetings with experts and operators of national and European relevance
- operational accompaniment for the creation of new partnerships, including support for the drafting of public notices and public-private agreements.

The result is a cultural ecosystem that is more solid, connected and capable of generating value over time. Because networks are not just tools: they are places where ideas take shape and become the future.

BUSINESS CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT
New roots to stay, grow, innovate

Regenerating an area also meant making it fertile for new enterprises, new ideas, new trajectories of the future. The intervention dedicated to business creation and development was born with this in mind: to transform latent vocations into concrete opportunities, offering tools, training and accompaniment to those who wished to build their own business projects in the villages of Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello.

The process was divided into several stages. It began with an awareness-raising action aimed at the local community, involving schools, associations and social realities in the area, to encourage the emergence of entrepreneurial ideas and aptitudes. This was followed by seminars and orientation moments, designed to raise awareness, skills and the ability to assess existing opportunities.

The next phase was devoted to operational training: simulations, workshops, and practical activities to help aspiring entrepreneurs transform their ideas into sustainable realities, capable of dialoguing with the market and local dynamics. Those who chose to start a business were guaranteed support in the management of initial investments, business organisation, product positioning and the development of commercial networks.

Special attention was given to customised consultancy for SMEs already active, with a focus on innovation, internationalisation, access to finance and collaboration with universities and technology partners.

Doing business in these places is not just an economic act: it is a choice of belonging, of trust, of shared construction of tomorrow.

DOLMEN SHORT FILM CONTEST
New looks for ancient stories

What happens when the language of cinema meets the memory of a territory? A laboratory of visions has taken shape in Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello: the Dolmen Short Film Contest, an artistic residency for young filmmakers, has transformed the two villages into a diffuse set of stories to be discovered and reinvented. Borghi Divini shaped a film campus that transformed Minervino and Giuggianello into places of creation, listening and storytelling. In Minervino di Lecce, residence and operational heart of the project, the workshops, community meetings and shared writing took place. In Giuggianello, explorations among landscapes and legends offered visual and narrative suggestions, becoming a living part of the stories. Both villages, with their voices and atmospheres, fed the authors' imaginations.
Five original screenplays were born from this dialogue between creatives and the territory. A collective storytelling exercise that involved over 300 people: inhabitants, students, actors, cultural operators. Each story is a seed planted in the soil of identity, ready to generate imagination and future.

THE CONVENT OF THE REFORMED FRIARS
A place of memory that becomes an engine for the future

A living, shared, accessible space: this is the future of the Convent of the Reformed Friars of Minervino di Lecce at the end of the restoration work. For centuries it has guarded silence, knowledge and spirituality, and now proposes to welcome new forms of experience and knowledge, in continuity with the rural identity that has marked the history of the village.

It is not just an architectural renovation project, but a cultural action: restoring meaning to a place dear to the community, regenerating it with functions that respect its profound vocation. CIBUS, an outpost dedicated to taste and sustainability, to the narration of food as cultural heritage, has been conceived within it. A place where nothing is wasted and every element finds new life, where the rural past can inspire contemporary gestures. A space open to conviviality and food education, with taste workshops, educational trails, activities for tourists, schools and operators. These include the Friars' Garden to offer direct contact with the land, its cycles and its teachings.

On the upper floor, the Service Centre is dedicated to tools and skills for local businesses: coworking spaces, planning, training sessions. A possible observatory on the future of agribusiness, rooted in traditions and open to innovation.

The Convent is thus proposed as a cultural and symbolic node: a place where past and present dialogue, where culture can inhabit the everyday, and contribute to regenerating - over time - the profound sense of living.

THE TABLES OF ST JOSEPH
The ritual that unites houses, hands, stories

In Minervino di Lecce, every March, the Tavole di San Giuseppe (St Joseph's tables) return to tell the story of an identity rooted in popular faith and the culture of sharing. It is an ancient tradition, also alive in other municipalities in this part of Salento, which is renewed in the silence of the kitchens, in the gestures handed down, in the sincere welcome of those who open their homes.

Within the Borghi Divini project, this ritual becomes the symbol of an intangible heritage to be preserved and recounted. Not only as a memory that endures, but as an opportunity to rediscover meaning in relationships, in everyday knowledge, in the flavours of the land. And to offer those who arrive an authentic experience of meeting and listening.

The Tables thus become a choral narrative: representative tables, itinerant routes, moments of spiritual and cultural reflection involving schools, associations, parishes and citizens. Every dish is a sign, every gesture a legacy, every pause an invitation to stop and participate.

The Tables of St Joseph are not just a ritual that is preserved: they are a shared time, in which community and visitors recognise themselves in the same bread, in the same story.

PALAZZO LUBELLI- ARCHEOHUB
A meeting point for research, storytelling and discovery

Archaeology as a key to reading the future: Palazzo Lubelli opens its doors to a new season. The recently renovated historic building in Giuggianello will host Archeohub, a permanent space dedicated to the discovery and enhancement of the archaeological heritage of the lower Salento region.

Created to welcome scholars, tourists, schools and enthusiasts, Archeohub is conceived as a living centre, where memory becomes experience. A reference point for those who want to know the deep history of the territory, exploring its material and immaterial signs: from the archaic civilisations to the gestures of the rural tradition, from the rocky landscapes to the traces hidden in the stones.

It will house archaeology workshops, a tourist and cultural info-point, a guesthouse for researchers and students, and exhibition spaces to narrate - in accessible and innovative forms - the stratified wealth of the territory.

Palazzo Lubelli thus presents itself as a threshold between past and present, a place where culture becomes an engine of community and an attractor for conscious tourism. An invitation to stop, observe, dig - in the broadest sense - and let oneself be told.

PARK OF GIANTS AND FAIRY TALES
Among sacred stones, ancient tales and landscapes to traverse

In Giuggianello, amidst dolmens, menhirs and legends guarded by the wind, the Parco dei Giganti e delle Fiabe (Park of Giants and Fairy Tales) is taking shape: a project that intertwines nature, myth and culture to give back to the territory a place to live, explore and tell.

Work is underway on defining an experiential itinerary through the megalithic area and its charms: from the Rocks of the Nymphs and Children to the forest paths, from the stories handed down to the silent beauty of the countryside. An itinerary designed to enhance the botanical, archaeological and symbolic wealth of this land, transforming it into an experience for attentive travellers, families, schools and artists.

Among the planned stops, the Paletta forest is distinguished by the presence of a native cork oak, considered the most easterly in Italy: a botanical rarity that gives the place an identity and naturalistic value. All around, a tangle of Mediterranean essences, paths through the leaves, dry stone walls and light tracks.

The Park proposes itself as a space capable of holding together the profound identity of the places and their vocation for hospitality. Workshops, excursions, performances, walks and educational activities will be the future stages of a tale that unites past and possibility, roots and imagination.

It is an invitation to slow down, to walk among the stones, to listen to the stories that have never stopped speaking to us.

R&D AND TRAINING FOR AGRICULTURE
The land that heals, teaches, innovates

In the heart of an area scarred by Xylella, research becomes the seed of rebirth. With the Borghi Divini project, Minervino di Lecce and Giuggianello stand as open laboratories for a new agriculture: more sustainable, aware and rooted in the future.

The R&D and Training for Agriculture programme is designed to restore productive dignity to rural landscapes, enhancing biodiversity and regenerating farming knowledge with innovative tools. Through pilot plants, field experiments and advanced cultivation techniques , the aim is to protect native ecotypes and develop new varieties, capable of ensuring environmental, economic and social sustainability.

But the real challenge is in the sharing: demo days, refresher courses and training activities open to young farmers, technicians and professionals. From pruning to grafting, from ecosystem-based plant management to variety selection, each training activity becomes an opportunity to learn, exchange, grow.

In a context where the earth is memory, culture and resource, research is no longer just academia: it is an instrument of community. Because every fruit cultivated with respect tells a story that concerns us all.