Paolotti Hypogeum

Carved into the rock, the Ipogeo dei Paolotti of Grottaglie features a millstone, mangers and wells for collecting oil. This complex is located within the Paolotti monastery, which still retains a beautiful painted cloister, one of the few intact in Apulia. The earliest hypogea also included tombs in the cistern church and a system of caves behind the church consisting of various cavities, some of considerable size, formerly used as workshops for tanners an oil mill and a neviera. In the caves behind the church that can now be visited, there was a tannery that used the tanks to soak and treat hides. Inside the cave rooms are preserved the mangers that were used for the animals, mainly pigs that were then slaughtered.