The patron saint of Manduria is Saint Gregory the Great, celebrated on 3 September: in the town's mother church, one of the two side chapels is dedicated to him, the other to the Blessed Sacrament, while the facade with its pointed pediment holds a rose window and a portal topped by a lunette with a high relief of the Trinity.
The town's name is of Messapian origin, and may derive from an Indo-European root linked to the horse, an animal whose breeding was particularly widespread in ancient Salento. Manduria still preserves important evidence of its Messapian past today, including megalithic walls surrounded by the remains of the ancient moat and a necropolis: it was precisely near these walls, in 338 BC, that Archidamus III, king of Sparta and ally of the Tarentines against the town, died in battle. During Hannibal's descent into Italy, Manduria sided with the towns rebelling against Rome, suffering harsh repression with the deportation of thousands of inhabitants. Today the town's economy rests chiefly on agriculture, in particular the production of the famous Primitivo di Manduria wine, both DOP and DOCG, together with olive oil and typical products such as the Manduria cherry tomato and carosello melon.
