The city was founded by colonists from Naxos as Leontini in 729 BC,[4] which in its beginnings was a Chalcidian colony established five years earlier in Magna Graecia.

The site, originally held by the Sicels, was seized by the Greeks owing to their command on the fertile plain in the north.

[4][5] In 422 BC, the Greek city-state of Syracuse supported the oligarchs against the people and received them as citizens, Leontini itself being forsaken.

The exiles of Leontini joined the envoys of Segesta in persuading Athens to undertake the great Sicilian Expedition of 415 BC.

The eastern hill still has the remains of a strongly fortified medieval castle, in which some writers are inclined (though wrongly) to recognise portions of the Greek masonry.

[4] Excavations were made in 1899 in one of the ravines in a Sicel necropolis of the third period; explorations in the various Greek cemeteries resulted in the discovery of some fine bronzes, notably a lebes.

By the time the Allied invasion of Sicily occurred through Operation Husky, Lentini was occupied by German troops from the Nazi Germany's army.

Not far from the town, to the northwest, lies the basin of the Lago di Lentini (better known as Biviere), which was once completely drained and today has been restored at its old site.

[16] The secondary economic sector is made up of companies operating in areas such as food, construction, engineering, electronics, plastic goods manufacturing, refined petroleum products, medical and surgical equipment, furniture, wood processing, stone and ore extraction.