San Vito dei Normanni, a town with a prevalently agricultural economy, is characterised by the large vineyards that alternate to century-old almond and olive groves in a mosaic of land plots outlined and separated by long and low dry-stone walls. Bordered by the municipal territories of Brindisi, Francavilla Fontana and Ostuni, San Vito dei Normanni is told to have been founded toward the end of the X century by the Swabian colony of the Schiavoni, which settled in the territory that was then called “Castri Sancti Viti”. But according to other historians, the place was first settled by the Norman Bohemund of Altavilla, the son of Robert Guiscard, who loved hunting very much and, for this reason, had ordered the construction of a square tower in this place full of woods and game to hunt. The small village grew in the final Middle Ages period when the protection ensured by the Norman tower attracted the inhabitants from the surrounding countryside, who massively transferred to San Vito to be protected from the Turks’ assaults. However, it was only in the year 1400 that the ancient village was organised into a Municipality, bound to feudal slavery and under the King’s protection. Starting from the XV century, the village extended northward and, after the construction of the Church of Saint Mary of the Victory (1571-1595), also eastward.
On April 14, 1994, a Decree of the President of the Republic established the Municipality of San Vito dei Normanni, with the title of Città.