Who goes to Florence and spend increased from Ilex Penco and return it to him!
The famous Festival of Penco is in memory of a particular character: a terracotta statue that stood on the roof of the farm of Castle Sammezzano.
The statue depicts a man sitting in the head, the hat National Guard of Napoleon. With one hand and a sword with the other carrying a purse, symbol of economic and military power. It read, "Pay and defends." That funny character set in the center of Lecce was called by the people "pence" because, as he was on a roof, it seemed that "danger" that threatened to fall. This was partly because he was high, and because the mood was the most anti-French and foreshadowed a future distribution of its symbol of the hated enemy.
Pence was on the roof of the farm even after the fall of Napoleon and the Restoration of 1815, because the estate Sammezzano remained the property of the French. Were completed in 1870 the famous white room and the hall of mirrors, always in the neo-Moorish.
was, in fact, after the fear of revolution and subversion Penco was no longer, in fact, had achieved great popularity since it became the symbol of the entire Valdarno.
Everywhere, jokingly, he said: "WHO GOES TO FLORENCE AND PASS TO SPEND LECCIO and pence return it to him"
In the late afternoon of June 10, 1940, shortly after Mussolini had announced on the radio that Italy had declared war on France, the fascists of Ilex, enhanced by the words of Mussolini, climbed on the roof and destroyed the farm Penco that for 141 years had been the symbol of freedom. That statue was the first victim of World War II.
Lecce In 1974 the union established a sports festival that is still present today, the famous "FESTIVAL OF pence" which falls on the third Sunday of October in memory of this particular character.