Carosino

Carosino was destroyed by Albanians and then repeopled by Albanians. In the fifteenth century the armies following Skanderbeg razed the small hamlet, whose feudal lord, Raimondo De Noha, had sided with Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo, prince of Taranto, in the revolt against the king of Naples of 1462. The place stayed almost uninhabited for nearly half a century, passing as a fief among the noble families of the area; in 1471 the Antoglietta bought it, and they recolonised it with the authorisation of the viceroy of Naples, in 1522, bringing in Albanian settlers. Of that community, though, the language does not remain today: the Greek-Byzantine rite and with it, probably, the Arbëresh tongue disappeared in the seventeenth century through the massive effort of archbishop Lelio Brancaccio, who wanted to extend the Catholic rite in Latin.

Long before, the trade between Taranto and Greece passed this way: so says a hoard of seventy-six silver coins, of the fourth century before Christ, found in a field in 1904. After the sack of Taranto by the Saracens, in 927, it is likely that the site was abandoned for a long time and then recolonised under the name of Citrignano; the first certain sources are the Angevin registers and date from 1348. In the middle of the village stands the ducal palace, begun by the Simonetta, with the projecting block of round arches and the rustication that give it the air of a castle; the heirs of the d'Ayala Valva gave it to the comune in 1985, and now the community's affairs are held there. In front of it, in the square, every August before the grape harvest they hold the wine fair: from the monumental fountain, on that day, wine comes out.