The first stone of the present day chiesa della SS. Annuziata was put in place on the 16^th of October 1701 in the presence of the archbishop of Brindisi Barnaba de Castro who was a Spaniard. The work was carried out by the master builders Capozza di Lequile to the design of the Leccese architect Giuseppe Cino.

The Capozzas worked until 1715 to complete the elevation; not constructing the roof because Cino’s plan envisaged a planked wooden structure. In the meantime, however, the Dominican friars, the owners of the church and the attached monastery, had decided that the roof should be vaulted and so, even against the opinion of the designer, it was built between 1716 and 1729 as a vaulted roof by the master architect Angelo Guido and his sons Francesco and Donato.

The earthquake on the 20^th of February 1743, that affected all the Salento region, didn’t spare Mesagne or the church SS Annunziata. The monastery and the church suffered extensive damage and in 1745, the Dominicans entrusted to the engineer Pasquale Margoleo the task of rebuilding part of the monastery and church. The work lasted five years and in 1750 the church was finished; with an octagonal form and the vault in stone. However, the building was never constructed according to the original design; the bell tower was not built and the facade remained incomplete.

After the suppression of the Ordine dei Predicatori (Order of Preachers or Dominicans) that occurred in 1809, the church was installed in 1848 into the confraternity of Saint Leonard and the church was reopened for worship. The main facade of the church is sub-divided into two registers of which, the upper, with a central window and lateral niches decorated with Baroque motifs, is incomplete. The inside, characterised by a single wide nave with an irregular polygonal layout with eight lateral chapels, houses numerous works of art from the 18^th century, amongst which there is a wooden statue of the Abbot Saint Leonard and several fine paintings; the works of Saverio Lillo da Ruffano and Gian Pietro Zullo, natives of Mesagne and pioneers of a robust local painting tradition to which Domenico Pinca also belongs. Pinca was also Mesagnese but lived from the middle of the 18^th to the beginning of the 19^th century.

It is worth highlighting the portal of the previous 16^th century church; built by the sculptor Francesco Bellotto of Nardò dating from 1555. The portal was inserted into the rear facade, built in carparo stone (from Gallipoli) and of exquisite workmanship. It carries the city crest of Mesagne and the Beltrano Family, feudal lords at the time of construction. On the architrave there is a frieze decorated with figures in low relief representing the triumphal entrance of a sovereign into the town and the Veil of Veronica. In the central back-window of the portal there is the Virgin of the Rosary with Saint Domenico and Saint Caterina and at the sides of the rear window the Archangel Gabriel and the Vergine Annunziata (Annunciation). The rosette ferule found above the portal is also attributed to Bellotto.