Porto Cesareo represents the stratification of ages and populations that over time have followed one another on its territory still today a center of great interest, culture and entertainment.

To tell the story of Porto Cesareo you have to go far back in time, until the Bronze Age, a period when sailors from Greece used to choose Salento to settle there. As proof of this, votive statuettes and various relics dating back to the time have been found.

In Roman times, Porto Cesareo was known by the name Portus Sasinae, probably from the name of the founding people: it is said, in fact, that the inhabitants of Saseno, an Albanian island not far from Vlona, founded the small village of Salento.

Soon, however, the Mycenaeans replaced this people of skilled fishermen and traders, enriching the city with their precious artifacts.

It was then the turn of the Messapians. This people of Illyrian or Aegean-Anatolian origin, arrived in Salento on the threshold of the Iron Age, around the 11th century B.C. and settled in the provinces of Lecce, Brindisi and Taranto, also flowing into the territory of Porto Cesareo.

After a period of vital trade Portus Sasinae fell into total neglect and degradation, also because of pirate raids and attacks of nearby Gallipoli, who, wanting to protect their area of maritime trade, organized the total destruction of the port.

The rebirth of Porto Cesareo is due to the salvific intervention of the Basilian monks. Around the year 1000 they built an abbey in which they lived until the fifteenth century. From this moment on, the small Port, until now belonged to the Orsini del Balzo, princes of Taranto, passed to the Acquaviva, dukes of Nardò (the autonomy from the municipality of Nardò was acquired only in 1975, following a referendum requested by the local inhabitants).

During the fifteenth century Porto Cesareo developed as an important commercial center connected first with Sicily and then also with the Maritime Republics and were built the wonderful towers that still fascinate the eye of tourists who travel the Ionian coast salentine.

Subsequently, the small port fell again into oblivion, until reaching the definitive rebirth around the beginning of the '800, a period in which an embryonic urban center was developed destined to grow and populate, until the end of the century, when there were a few hundred inhabitants and the beautiful church was built in honor of Santa Maria de Cesarea.

The urban center soon became a tourist destination thanks to the development of the fascist period: it is from this moment that the town is called with the current name of Porto Cesareo.

Around the mid-60s history is intertwined with science and so in 1966 the Station of Marine Biology was established, later acquired by the University of Salento. At this roundup of events, There was only a pinch of worldliness that was reached in 2002: Porto Cesareo leaps to the headlines thanks to a statue dedicated to the actress Manuela Arcuri.