Seclì

Seclì lies among the Salento ridges, in the middle of olive groves and vineyards, and three explanations compete over its name, all of them interesting. Two involve money: the Latin seculum, a Roman coin, and the shekel, the old Hebrew monetary unit — and this second idea rests on the fact that a small Jewish community lived at Seclì from the twelfth century. The third is the Galateo's, who derived it from secludo, to separate: the refugees of the hamlet of Fulcignano, defeated by Galatone, are said to have separated and founded new villages, Seclì among them.

The first firm record is of 1198, when Tancred of Hauteville gave the fief, together with that of Matino, to Filippo de Persona: the De Persona-De Matino were convinced Ghibellines and anti-papal, and they paid for their choices when the Angevins arrived. In 1484, when the Venetian fleet occupied Gallipoli, Seclì too was overrun. Then the usual chain of feudal lords, down to the Spanish dukes D'Amato, who in 1587 had the church and convent of Sant'Antonio built. The most recent turn is administrative: in 1930 Seclì was annexed to Aradeo and reduced to a hamlet, and it regained its autonomy only in 1948.