Porto Cesareo

Porto Cesareo is known as the ancient Portus Sasinae and was founded by the people from Saseno a small island near Valona in Albania. They appeared on the Ionian coast, before the fifth century BC and became known for fishing and their trading enterprise. On the coasts of the country, the Mycenaeans landed first, and were remembered for the artefacts brought from home, especially vases with painted motifs. Afterwards the Messapi settled, coming probably from Illiria (modern Albania) settled over the whole territory of Puglia, around the eighth century BC.

This presence is demonstrated by four stone pillars, religious symbols mad as an offering to the gods. In the Roman period the Sasina disappeared, probably destroyed by the people from Gallipoli, who saw them as a rival in the fish trading and then wanted to seize its port (the exact date of destruction is not documented, it is probably to be ascribed to around 200-300 AD).

A few centuries later it was called Cesaria, by the Greeks and slowly the small core started to expand. In the Middle Age it was a colony of Nardò, later passed into the possession of the Count of Lecce, Antonio Orsini. At the beginning of the twentieth century the agricultural hinterland was fully drained. In 1966 the Marine Biology Station was founded, which was acquired in 1977 by the University of Lecce and managed since 1980 by a committee which includes the city of Porto Cesareo. Since 1974, a referendum has enshrined its autonomy from Nardo, becoming a separate municipality. In recent decades, its importance has grown remarkably as a fish market and equipped primarily as a tourist resort.