Monteroni

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Monteroni di Lecce is an Italian town with ca. 13,659 inhabitants. It is located in the Province of Lecce (7 km from Lecce) in the south-east of Italy (peninsula of Apulia, and particularly in the area currently called “Salento” and reported until recently also as “Terra d’Otranto”).

1 History
2 Monuments and tourism
3 Twin towns
4 External links

[edit] History

Probably the name Monteroni comes from Latin Mons Tyronum 'mount of the spear-men' hinting its origin as a training camp for the Roman legions. In fact originally the Romans apparently established a military stronghold on the hill nowadays called 'San Filii'. From this era of romanisation of the region, coins and other archaeological material has been found and studied.

During the Norman period, the fiefdom of Monteroni was part of the County of Lecce. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (and also sovereign of the Mezzogiorno and of the Kingdom of Sicily from his heritage from the Apulian Normans' dynasty) in 1250 granted the fiefdom of Monteroni to the De Cremona, followed in this feudal office by the Montoroni family who held the fief until 1500s. It was the Montoroni who built the first Baronial Palace in the town in the original shape of a small fortress.

When the fief passed onto the baron Lopez y Royo, the Baronial Palace was enlarged and gained the current baroque style: it was then the XVI century, époque of the rich and renown “Barocco Leccese” (Lecce’s typical Baroque). Monteroni di Lecce owes the baroque period also its bell tower and the two chapels which were located in the central square (currently “Piazza I. Falconieri”) on the site currently occupied by the major church “Chiesa Matrice”. Feudalism in the south of Italy was abolished with the events following the French Revolution when also the Kingdom of Naples became a republic and then a Napoleonic kingdom. Since then it was the “Municipality of Monteroni di Lecce” which took over and carried on the sorts of the fief of Monteroni.

[edit] Monuments and tourism

Apart from the above-mentioned Baronial Palace and Chiesa Matrice, the other major monuments include the Town Hall (17th century) and the villas and mansions that the region’s aristocratic families build in the countryside around of Monteroni di Lecce since the XV century (this exploit of aristocratic country-houses actually took place throughout the whole area of “Valle della Cupa” on the south-west of Lecce). Inter al. in Monteroni di Lecce one can mention: Villa Romano (the biggest of Monteroni’s aristocratic estates), Villa Carelli-Palombi, Villa de Giorgi, Villa Urselli, Villa Bruni, Villa Saetta, etc. As for the more contemporary architecture “Velodromo degli Ulivi”, the cycling course where the World Cycling Championship took place in 1976, the “Ecotekne” campus of the University of Lecce as well as the university’s dormitories converted from the former tobacco-factories. Monteroni di Lecce's status is that of a university town thanks to those academic institutions and state-of-the-art university facilities.