Maglie (Salentino: Maje; Griko: Μάλιαι, translit. Màje; Latin: Mallae) is a town and comune in the province of Lecce in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.
Maglie (Salentino: Maje; Griko: Μάλιαι, translit. Màje; Latin: Mallae) is a town and comune in the province of Lecce in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.
The province of Lecce (Italian: provincia di Lecce; Salentino: provincia te Lècce) is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lecce. The province is called the "Heel of Italy". Located on the Salento peninsula, it is the second most-populous province in Apulia and the 21st most-populous province in Italy.
The province occupies an area of 2,799.07 square kilometres (1,080.73 sq mi) and has a total population of 802,807 (2016). There are 97 comuni (sg.: comune) in the province. It is surrounded by the provinces Taranto and Brindisi in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the west, and the Adriatic Sea in the east. This location has established it as a popular tourist destination. It has been ruled by the Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Carolingians, Lombards, and Normans. The important towns are Lecce, Gallipoli, Nardò, Maglie, and Otranto. Its important agricultural products are wheat and corn. Lecce stone extracted from the province has been used to decorate several historical monuments and is widely used for interior decoration.
The Deer Cave (Italian: Grotta dei Cervi - literally: Grotto of the stags) is a natural cave at the Salento coast near the town of Porto Badisco, around 8 km (5.0 mi) south of Otranto in Apulia, Italy. Unknown before 1970, it came to immediate international attention after the discovery of its impressive, innovative and enigmatic complex galleries of prehistoric parietal wall paintings.
This complex of caves was discovered during an ongoing routine exploration of the local territory on February 1, 1970 by a team of speleologists of the Salento Speleological Group "Pasquale de Laurentiis" from Maglie. It was initially named Cave of Aeneas (Grotta di Enea) in reference to Virgil's Aeneid in which the Trojan hero Aeneas first landed in Italy precisely in Porto Badisco. The current name alludes to the omnipresence and significance of deer depictions among the cave's galleries. The location was soon closed to the public in order to ensure that the original environmental conditions essential for the conservation of the paintings are not disrupted. Access to the cave remains restricted to authorized personnel and researchers only.