Diso is a small village of the Salento hinterland situated on a green plain full of water springs, not far from the Adriatic coast, to which it is connected by the settlement of Marittima. The origins of Diso seem to date back to pre-history, as suggested by the finding of a X cent. b.C. Vardare menhir, an Eneolithic dagger (2500 b.C.) and a stone with Messapic inscriptions. The village was probably fortified in the VIII century b.C., as when it was a Messapic town whose name, "Dizos", means "fortified town", referring to its defensive role. In the Middle Ages, it was included in the County of Castro, with which it shared alternating dominations. Turk raids in the area also involved Diso, which managed to emerge from that dark period by accepting incoming migrations of refugees who had escaped the slaughters of Otranto and Castro, and then becoming, in the course of the XVI century, the most important centre of the County and the new seat of Agents and Governors. During the XVII and XVIII centuries, Diso distinguished itself from the adjacent municipalities, boasting the construction of a number of buildings and monuments that are still there, undamaged, in the oldest part of town. According to the tradition, Saint Francis of Assisi passed through this place and expressed the desire to build a convent there, which was completed in 1719.