Press & Media · 15Dolcevita and ManduriaShire

The story, in one line.

In the old town of Manduria, Salento, Puglia, three suites are being born around one word: comunanza, being well together, effortlessly.

Albergo diffuso · 10 buildings3 suites at openingSummer 2027Manduria, Salento, Puglia
Press contact

Mario Dimitri, co-founder

mario@manduriashire.it · +39 329 716 6885

English and Italian. No press office: Mario answers personally, usually the same day.

For “Si rende noto”: sirendenoto.it · segreteria@sirendenoto.it

Press releases
  1. In Manduria, an albergo diffuso built around one word: comunanza

    The first three suites of 15Dolcevita open in summer 2027 in the old stables of a noble palazzo.

The story

Comunanza

An old Italian word for having something in common. Comunanza: being well together, effortlessly. Different people enjoying what they have in common: the long table, the piazza in the evening, a town that knows your name by the second morning.

15Dolcevita is an albergo diffuso in ten historic buildings of the old town, restored by hand with local craftsmen. Three suites open in Via Verdi 15 in Summer 2027, with a noble kitchen, a hamam, an infrared sauna, red light therapy and the Gymnásion. The first fifty members become Founding Members.

The story is people coming to live in an old town all year, at the same table as those who never left.

Behind it is Manduriashire Srl. Mario Dimitri, co-founder, grew up in Manduria and spent seventeen years building businesses across Asia. Then he came home, to build something that lasts. Maria Pia Ancora is the investor.

The word

Comunanza · koh-moo-NAHN-tsah

Having something in common (Treccani dictionary). In the Middle Ages a comunanza was land: the pastures and woods a village used in common. Today it is a piazza.

Restanza is the anthropologist Vito Teti's word for those who stay; ritornanza, for those who come back. Comunanza is the third word: those who stayed, those who came back and those who arrive, at the same table.

Not to be confused with Comunanza, a town in the Marche.

What comunanza means →

The number

15 · quindici · KWEEN-dee-chee

Fifteen is our street number, twice over: Via Verdi 15, where the first three suites open, and Piazza Garibaldi 15, where our office will be and where “Si rende noto” posts its artists' posters.

And it is Carlos Moreno's quarter hour. A fifteen-minute city is one where everything you need is a quarter of an hour away on foot or by bike. The old town of Manduria, in Salento, Puglia, has always been one: from the square to the station is nine minutes on foot.

The fifteenth is also a feast day: Ferragosto on 15 August, the Chinese mid-autumn festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, Shichi-go-san on 15 November in Japan, when children are given the thousand-year candy. And in the Neapolitan smorfia, 15 is 'o guaglione, the boy.

Home, the quarter hour, feasting, youth, years well lived. That is why 15Dolcevita.

Why fifteen →

Key facts

15Dolcevita

  • An albergo diffuso: rooms spread across restored buildings of the old town, a few minutes' walk apart, with one kitchen and one living room for everyone
  • Opening: summer 2027, with the first three suites in Via Giuseppe Verdi 15. Open all year, from the very first winter
  • The house: once the stables of a noble palazzo. Walls a metre thick, star vaults, a vault from the seventeen hundreds, a courtyard with two new arches
  • At opening: a noble kitchen, a hamam, an infrared sauna, red light therapy and the Gymnásion
  • Membership: the first fifty members become Founding Members, with three nights a year, for life

Manduriashire Srl

  • Ten houses in seven streets of the old town, empty for years; none demolished
  • Restored by hand with local craftsmen; the project's money stays within thirty kilometres
  • Helps people who come to live here: a long lease first, then the house. No commission from anyone
  • Mario Dimitri, co-founder; Maria Pia Ancora, investor

“Si rende noto”

  • Artists' posters on the corner of Piazza Garibaldi and Piazza Ciracì, which for decades carried the town's death notices and public announcements
  • Four times a year, at each equinox and solstice, one layer over the other. Once a year the layers are lifted with the restorers' technique and become a collective work that stays with the town
  • First theme: “Comunanza”. A free international call for artists is planned from 1 December 2026 to 24 January 2027, dates to be confirmed
  • Prize chosen by the public: a one-week residency in Manduria to make a new work with the people who voted for it, as members of 15Dolcevita, for the artist and a person of their choice
  • Voting only in Manduria, through the QR code in the windows of shops in the old town
  • Promoted by Manduriashire Srl as a private collateral activity, in the spirit of Manduria's bid for Italian Capital of Culture 2029. Moral patronage of Confcommercio Manduria. A selection committee chooses the works

Manduria

  • 29,528 inhabitants (1 January 2026), in Salento, Puglia
  • 136 residents from western countries, up 27% since 2021; 85% of them are German, Swiss or Austrian (Istat, 1 January 2025)
  • The Ionian sea fifteen minutes away by car, with the Blue Flag beach of San Pietro in Bevagna
  • Brindisi airport fifty minutes by car
  • Railway station since 1907, nine minutes' walk from Piazza Garibaldi. When the works end, expected in 2027, it becomes one of three intermodal hubs on the rebuilt line between Martina Franca and Lecce, the Metropolitana di superficie: an existing railway, electrified and run more often, not an underground. Until then, replacement buses run. From 2027 by train: Lecce and Martina Franca with no change, Brindisi and Bari with one. Brindisi airport gets its own rail link from RFI, due to be finished in 2028
  • Primitivo di Manduria is named after the station: the barrels left from here, and in 1974 the shipping name became a protected denomination

Download the fact sheet (PDF)

Story angles
  1. The corner where Manduria read its news is about to post art. Who to talk to: Mario Dimitri, through segreteria@sirendenoto.it. Read: sirendenoto.it
  2. After restanza, comunanza: an old word for being well together. Who to talk to: Mario Dimitri
  3. From the old railcars to the surface metro: a town gets ready for its train. The station opened in 1907 and gave its name to a wine. It is due to reopen in 2027 as one of three intermodal hubs on the rebuilt line, nine minutes' walk from the piazza: Lecce and Martina Franca with no change, Brindisi and Bari with one, and a rail link to Brindisi airport due in 2028. Salento was always a city that never looked like one; the train will be its spine. Who to talk to: Mario Dimitri. Read: manduriashire.it/railway
  4. Built by hand: two arches in five months, tufo cut on site. What to see: a hard-hat visit, with the masons at work
  5. Why Germans, Swiss and Austrians choose Manduria: they are 85% of its western residents. The data: manduriashire.it/international-residents
  6. A town that wants residents, not more tourists: an open letter with five proposals that cost the council nothing. Read it: manduriashire.it/lettera (in Italian)
  7. Manduria is already a fifteen-minute city, and was one before the name existed. The old town was built when a town had to fit inside the distance a person covers on foot: from the square to the station is nine minutes. All six of the functions Carlos Moreno asks a city for sit inside the quarter hour, even at the pace of an eighty-year-old. Who to talk to: Mario Dimitri. What to see: the old town on foot, with a stopwatch. Read: 15dolcevita.club/why-fifteen
Quotable lines

“Everyone sells longevity. We offer community.”

“It is the word we use for what brought us home after twenty-eight years abroad. Not the sea, not the food: being well together, effortlessly.”

“We did not have to invent it. We only had to open the door.”

(on the comunanza Manduria has practised for centuries)

“Manduria does not need more tourists. It needs more residents.”

(open letter to the town, September 2026, translated from the Italian)

“When a real line reaches a town, the town changes the way it thinks of itself. Before, it is a place people leave. After, it is a place people come to.”

(manduriashire.it/ferrovia, translated from the Italian)

“From 2027 you will take the train from Manduria to Lecce and Martina Franca, the way Londoners go from Primrose Hill to Canary Wharf. And once Brindisi finishes its rail link to the airport, we will meet our friends off the plane by train, the way Londoners go to Heathrow or Gatwick.”

Mario Dimitri, co-founder of 15Dolcevita

What we do for the town
  • “Si rende noto”: public art on the town's notice corner, free for artists
  • An open letter to the town, September 2026: five proposals to the council, none of which costs a euro of its budget
  • We have asked to adopt the flowerbeds of Piazza Garibaldi
  • An open building site that anyone from the council can visit whenever they want
People

Mario Dimitri, co-founder. Grew up in Manduria; Bocconi, a CEIBS MBA, seventeen years building businesses across Asia. On site most mornings. Interviews and podcasts in English and Italian.

Maria Pia Ancora, investor. Environmental engineer, PhD at Tsinghua.

Images

Free to publish, with credit

Credit: courtesy 15Dolcevita · Manduriashire Srl. Professional photography of the uncovered star vaults is coming: write to us for previews and high-resolution files.

Manduria, the piazza at night
Manduria · the piazzaDownload
Via Verdi 15
Via Verdi 15Download
Rooftop bath rendering
Rooftop bath · renderingDownload
Suite rendering
The Suite · renderingDownload
Hand-built tufo arch in the courtyard of Via Verdi 15, Manduria, Salento, Puglia
The courtyard arches · building siteDownload
The courtyard of Via Verdi 15 with its new tree, Manduria, Salento, Puglia
The courtyard and its tree · building siteDownload
Chart: minutes on foot from Piazza Garibaldi to eleven points of the old town of Manduria, and the same trips by car
The quarter hour · chartDownload

Download all (ZIP)

Visits, interviews, previews

The site is under restoration now: we host one journalist or creator each month for a hard-hat visit among the star vaults, one at a time. Visits come with no conditions: whether and what you write is up to you. Mario is available for interviews and podcasts, in English and Italian.

Write to us →