Soleto (
Griko: ;
Salentino: ; ) is a small
Griko-speaking city located in the province of
Lecce in
Apulia
Apulia ( ), also known by its Italian language, Italian name Puglia (), is a Regions of Italy, region of Italy, located in the Southern Italy, southern peninsular section of the country, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Strait of Ot ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. The town has a total population of 5,542 and is one of the nine towns of
Grecìa Salentina
Grecìa Salentina (Griko for "Salento, Salentine Greece") is an area in the peninsula of Salento in southern Italy, near the town of Lecce which is inhabited by the Griko people, an ethnic Greek people, Greek minority in southern Italy who spea ...
where the Greek dialect
Griko is spoken.
History
In the 5th century, Soleto was elevated to the seat of a bishopric of the
Byzantine Rite. In the Middle Ages it was ruled by Count
Gjon Kastrioti II, son of the
Albanian national hero
Gjergj Kastrioti. In the 13th century the
Angevine rulers of
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
chose the city as the capital of a county, later ruled by the Castro, Balzo,
Orsini, Campofregoso, Castriota,
Sanseverino,
Carafa, and Gallarati-Scotti families, until feudal control was finally abolished in 1806. Soleto became part of the
Neapolitan Republic of 1799 and was a center of the
Carboneria during the Italian
Risorgimento.
Soleto Map
The
Soleto Map, the oldest geographical map in the Western world, was discovered in Soleto by Belgian archaeologist
Thierry van Compernolle of
Montpellier University on 21 August 2003.
Notable people
*
Matteo Tafuri (1492–1582),
philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
astrologer
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
and
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
.
See also
*
Kastrioti
*
Orsini family
References
External links
Soleto on Line(in
Italian)
Photogallery of Soleto(in
English)
Grecìa Salentina
Localities of Salento
{{Puglia-geo-stub