Lighthouses stand majestically guarding the seas, resisting even the worst storms, and have always captured the collective imagination. It is incredibly evocative to observe a lighthouse perched overlooking the sea from below. It tickles the idea of visiting it, climbing hundreds of steps to admire, once at the top, a breathtaking panorama that disappears into the horizon, where sea and sky merge.
Icons of Design and Architecture
Today many lighthouses are in disuse and have become artistic and cultural heritage to be preserved, works of architecture and ingenuity, some are true masterpieces, as lighthouses are not only useful navigation tools, but are also spectacular examples of design and architecture. From the majestic granite towers of European lighthouses to the elegant wrought iron structures of American lighthouses, each lighthouse carries with it a unique history and a timeless charm. Every detail, from the spiral staircases that climb to the top to the intricate gear systems that regulate the lamps, is a testament to human ingenuity and craftsmanship.
Historical Treasures
However, in ancient times, the safety of shipwrecked people and villages was entrusted to them and their guardians. In the event of attacks from the sea, they also served as coastal towers and the guardians, like sentries in outposts, were the first to be able to raise the alarm. Originally, lighthouses were simple bonfires or torches kept lit to signal landing areas.
There are testimonies that date back far in time that tell the myth of lighthouses. Virginia Woolf, in her 1927 novel “To the Lighthouse”, describes them as follows: «The Lighthouse was then a silvery, cloudy tower, with a yellow eye that opened suddenly and softly in the evening». Homer, in the 19th book of the Iliad (8th century BC), compares the flash of the shield of the great Achilles to “one of those fires that from the heights make the way safe for sailors”.
Lighthouses become a true myth with the ancient authors. Ovid, in the “Heroids”, a collection of 21 letters of love or grief imagined as written by famous heroines to their husbands or lovers.
When, in 1200, the Phoenicians arrived in the Mediterranean with the need to increase maritime trade, the need arose to extend the times of navigation even during the night. Thus, the construction of tower scaffolding was improvised along the coasts, where baskets with bonfires were positioned, guarded by men in charge of keeping the fire lit.
The first two wonderful lighthouses of antiquity date back to 300 BC. One of them is the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic bronze statue thirty-two meters high located at the entrance to the port of Mandraki. It represented the god Helios,
protector of Rhodes, who carried a lighthouse in his right hand. It remained guarding the island for sixty-seven years, before being destroyed by an earthquake.
The second lighthouse is the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which remained operational until the 9th century, before it too was destroyed by earthquakes. It was built to increase the safety of maritime traffic, which was made dangerous by the sandbanks at the entrance to the port of Alexandria. The lighthouse stood on the island of Pharos (Lighthouse), from which it takes its name. It consisted of a high quadrangular base that housed the staff’s rooms and the ramps for transporting fuel. Above the base stood an octagonal tower, followed by a cylindrical construction surmounted by a statue of Zeus, later replaced by that of Helios. The construction of the lighthouse made it possible to signal the position of the port to ships during the day, with the use of special polished bronze mirrors that reflected the sunlight, and at night, with the lighting of fires. It is estimated that the tower was 134 meters high and visible from 48 km away. Given its usefulness, lighthouses began to be built in many other places in the Mediterranean.
Later, the Romans also spread the construction of stone towers with fire at the top throughout their imperial conquests. These towers were also adopted by the four Lordships of the Maritime Republics in Italy, located near the ports. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the bell towers of monasteries built on top of rocks took on this function, especially in northern Europe. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, wonderful castle-like lighthouses were built in France and England, at the entrance to the English Channel, located in the middle of the sea but not very functional.
Between the end of the 18th and 19th centuries, lighthouses took on the connotation we know today. The New York Lighthouse, donated by France to the United States and known as the famous Statue of Liberty, was the first lighthouse in the United States, operated by the American Lighthouse Service, and remained in operation until 1902. It was also the first lighthouse to be electrified, in the late 1800s.
Before the advent of oil and then electricity, the substances used to fuel the lighthouse fires were varied: wood, coal, spermaceti candles (the fatty material found inside the skull of sperm whales and which burns without producing smoke), whale oil and olive oil, depending on the latitude.
It can be said that, throughout the world, no two lighthouses are the same. Each has its own peculiar characteristics. Their external appearance serves to identify them from afar during the day, while at night their light sends distinctive signals: light – eclipse, eclipse – light, with a specific frequency that allows the structure to be recognized in the dark. In the portolans, the manuals that are carried on board and that indicate all the information about the coasts and their dangers, each lighthouse is described with its particular light.
The Sentinels of Salento
In the Italian peninsula, with a coastline of about 7,458 km, there are beautiful lighthouses with fascinating stories, many of which have become highly sought-after tourist destinations.
The region that boasts the most fascinating locations, as well as those most sought after by tourists, is Puglia, with the Punta Palascìa Lighthouse in Otranto and the San Cataldo Lighthouse in Lecce, considered the two most beautiful in Italy; and those of Santa Maria di Leuca and the island of Sant’Andrea in Gallipoli, renowned for their height, which are all part of Salento.
The Punta Palascìa Lighthouse
The Punta Palascìa lighthouse is certainly the most renowned, not only nationally but also internationally: it is one of the 5 Mediterranean lighthouses protected by the European Commission.
Built in 1867 on the remains of a previous watchtower, it is 32 meters high and stands on a rocky promontory, overlooking the sea, in the easternmost point of Italy, better known as Capo d’Otranto.
Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can even see the mountains of Albania in the distance, which make the breathtaking panorama even more magical.
The lighthouse, managed by the Italian Navy and used as a meteorological station, remained in operation until the 1970s, after which it was abandoned. Starting in the 2000s it underwent a restoration project; since 2005 it has returned to illuminate, with its light, the darkness of the nights of Otranto.
Inside, a spiral staircase composed of 150 steps leads to the top, where the jewel of the lighthouse is kept: its lantern. The latter comes directly from Paris and bears the signature of Augustine-Henry Lepaute, a favorite student of the famous French engineer Gustave Eiffel.
Built in 1884, it emits a light signal visible up to 18 nautical miles and until the 1960s it was powered by oil; now, however, a solar cell.
At the foot of the lighthouse, a structure that, for years, served as a home to those who were entrusted with the custody of the place, the guardians.
A short distance away, the Multimedia Museum of the Sea was also set up, inside which it is possible to discover the typical flora and fauna of the area.
The San Cataldo Lighthouse
What makes the San Cataldo lighthouse unique and priceless is the place that hosts it: an inlet ten kilometers from the city of Lecce, which preserves the remains of an ancient pier commissioned by the emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD and which, for this reason, took the name of “Porto Adriano”, at the time when the city of Lecce was a Roman colony called ‘Lupiae’.
Its current name, according to legend, derives from an Irish monk who, returning from Jerusalem, was shipwrecked in this area and miraculously saved himself. The lighthouse consists of an octagonal tower just over 23 meters high and a masonry structure that was originally intended to house the lighthouse keepers and a warehouse, today the seat of the local maritime office. Its light beam is visible up to 5 miles.
The construction of a lighthouse in San Cataldo was proposed in 1863 by the Provincial Council of Terra d’Otranto to the Ministry of Public Works. The first project was presented in 1865, and while waiting for the construction of the lighthouse, which was activated in 1897, a temporary lighthouse was installed on top of a municipal building.
The Lighthouse of Santa Maria di Leuca
The second tallest lighthouse in Europe is also octagonal in shape, and it is the imposing lighthouse of Santa Maria di Leuca, which with its 47 meters of height rises on the top of Punta Meliso, a few steps from the Basilica “de Finibus Terrae”.
It was designed by the engineer Achille Rossi in 1864, where an ancient Saracen tower previously stood.
Its lantern, in operation since 1866, has a diameter of 3m, is made up of 16 lenses, of which 6 are free and 10 are obscured. These lenses project beams of white light visible up to 50 km away, alternating with beams of red light that warn sailors of the dangerous shallows of the Ugento sea.
Inside the structure there are 4 accommodations of which 3 are used by the lighthouse keepers and one is used as an inspection room, engine room and radio beacon room.
To reach the top of the lighthouse you have to go up a spiral staircase, composed of 254 steps. But once you have left the last step behind you, the view that you find in front of you makes you forget any effort: the blue of the sea that embraces the blue of the sky, and if you are a little lucky, the coasts of the island of Corfu and the mountains of Albania that appear on the horizon.
The Lighthouse of Sant’Andrea
Equally enchanting is the landscape that forms the backdrop to the lighthouse on the island of Sant’Andrea, an uncontaminated natural paradise of about fifty hectares just a few kilometers from Gallipoli.
46 meters high and lit for the first time in 1866, the lighthouse remained abandoned for many years; recently renovated, since 2005 it has resumed illuminating the Ionian waters with its lantern, capable of reaching a distance of 20 miles.
Only the sound of the waves of the sea breaks the silence that reigns on the island, today completely uninhabited.
The same sea that every night witnesses the awakening of these gentle giants, ready to watch over, each from their own position, the lives of those who find themselves, for one reason or another, sailing its waters.
About 46 meters high, the lighthouse on the island of Sant’Andrea is among the highest in Europe, although the low altitude of the island, which does not exceed 3 meters above sea level, can be misleading. Known since the times of the Kingdom of Naples with the Messapian name of Achtotus, or arid land, the island was named after Sant’Andrea in 1591, due to a Byzantine chapel dedicated to the saint.
At the foot of the lighthouse, a teeming universe lives undisturbed, without the cumbersome presence of humans. The approximately fifty hectares of land on the island, part of the Regional Natural Park of the Island of Sant’Andrea and the Punta Pizzo Coast, are home to colonies of wild rabbits and the elegant Corsican gull, which has chosen the island as its only nesting site in Italy, an arid and rocky landscape, but refreshed by the presence of rushes and glasswort. About a mile from the mainland, the island has a completely different and unique ecosystem, which allows it to offer shelter to storks and herons during migration and to be populated by shrimp and other molluscs in the many lakes that spontaneously infiltrate between the rocks.
A wonderful natural oasis, recognized as a natural habitat of community importance and identified as a protected natural area by a regional law of Puglia in 1997, classified as being of particular historical and artistic interest by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Abandoned to the waves and storms until 2005, the lighthouse has been renovated but today no keeper lives there. The Gallipoli lantern is automatic and the island itself is not accessible or available for moorings and landings not previously agreed with the Port Authority.
Conclusions
In conclusion, lighthouses are not just historical monuments or simple navigation tools; they are symbols of human perseverance, architectural beauty and connection with the sea.
Through their imposing presence and fascinating stories, lighthouses continue to enchant and inspire those who visit them, offering a unique opportunity to discover the enchantment of the maritime world.