Soleto

Soleto is a town with 5515 inhabitants ( 31 December 2012) in the Italian province of Lecce in Apulia, Italy, is spoken in the Greek.

Soleto is one of the nine towns of the Salento, the Salento Greece. The neighboring municipalities are Corigliano d' Otranto, Gala Tina, Martano, San Donato di Lecce, Sternatia and Zollino,

History

The inhabitants Soletos are descendants of Greek settlers, BC founded colonies in Italy and Sicily since the 8th century. They speak Griko, a dialect emerged from the Doric Greek, but continued to develop independently from Hellenistic Greek. The city's inhabitants call themselves Grekos, derived from the Latin Graecus, and consider themselves the Hellenes.

In the 5th century was Soleto bishopric Greek rite, the then united Christian church. In the 13th century Soleto capital of a county, which was ruled until the abolition of feudalism in 1806 by the families of di Castro, Del Balzo Orsini, Campofregoso, Castriota and Sanseverino, Carafa and Gallarati - Scotti was.

Soleto took part in the Neapolitan Republic and was a center of Carbonari during the Italian Risorgimento.