Diso (source: Visual Puglia )
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.
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Sun, sea, wind. Nature strikes in the first place, when one gets to this land stretch in balance between two seas. Salento has its core in the province of Lecce, - a Baroque Florence in Southern Italy – and reaches the provinces of Brindisi over the Adriatic Sea, and Taranto on the Ionian Sea side. The cities and inland towns expressions of the unique Lecce Baroque with Messapi and Salento Grecìa can still be seen. Its language, songs and feasts still show the culture of Graecia Magna. Surf, kite-surf and windsurf lovers never miss the beaches facing the Alimini lakes, while scuba diving fans just have to choose among the several equipped centers and charming sea beds of the Ionian coast as well as of the area between Otranto and Santa Maria di Leuca.
Church and hermitage of Santa Maria of the Angels - Scorrano
Lighthouse and aqueduct - Santa Maria di Leuca
Salento coast is characterized by a high variety in landscapes: the clear, fine sand beaches of Santa Cesarea seafront; famous caves such as Castro cave with its Grotta Romanelli, one of the most important Italian prehistoric settlements, and Grotta Zinzulusa, 'the pearl of caves', owing its name to the dialect word 'zinzuli', ('rags'), used by fishermen to indicate its beautiful stalactites and stalagmites
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Baroque style affirmed in Apulia during Counter-Reformation upon the will of Roman Church. A way of exalting Catholic symbols, Lecce and Nardò Baroque has its own characteristics that make it different from the same artistic style in other regions. Its peculiarities derive from the use of amber-colored Lecce stone as well as decorations used to mask the structures on which they are mounted
In Southern Apulia, at the heart of Salento, nine municipalities united to save what is still left of the ancient Grika culture. In this area of Salento there can still be found traces of Graecia Magna Grika language spoken in the Basilian convents dismantled after the council of Trent
Project created in collaboration with InnovaPuglia.
Regione Puglia
Regione Puglia