Monteiasi

Monteiasi (Tarantino: Mundejase; Brindisino: Muntiasi; locally Muntiase) is a town and comune in the Taranto province in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.

Around the 16th century, a large group of Albanian refugees coming from the Balkans during the conquest of the latter by the Ottoman Empire settled in Monteiasi.

At the end of same century, it was forced to leave their houses, because the archbishops of Taranto abandoned the Greek rite.

From the standpoint of historians, the toponym derives from the devotion to Saint Blaise, 'mons Blasi' (Monte di Biagio).

Moreover, its origins may be traced back to the "Palummara" farm, located to the west of the town, which shows its story through the archaeological complex from the Neolithic to the Roman conquest.