Provincia di Lecce
Lecce's second copies run to 1941
Lecce holds one long, undivided civil series — 1809 to 1941 — with no tribunal split and no gap at unification. Citizenship registers join it from 1866. That is a hundred and thirty-two years of second copies in a single fond, which is as straightforward as southern archives get. The one thing to know is military: the district was Lecce and Taranto together, so a Tarantino record may be here and a Salentine one may be there.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Lecce
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Lecce holds
The civil fond is Stato civile, 1809-1941: birth, marriage, death and, from 1866, citizenship registers, produced in second copy by the civil status officers of the comuni of the province of Lecce.
A hundred and thirty-two years in one undivided series is unusual in the south. There is no 1865 cliff, no split between tribunal districts, and no separate later deposit to chase. For most Salentine families the whole civil trail from the Napoleonic period to the Second World War is in this one fond.
Because the province was Terra d'Otranto until the 1920s, this archive is also the place to start for comuni now in Brindisi (separated 1927) and Taranto (separated 1923) for anything earlier.
Military records are held jointly with Taranto. The Distretto militare di Lecce e di Taranto covers classes 1844-1925 for both levy lists and matricular rolls. The Ufficio di leva di Lecce covers classes 1871-1942. The joint district is why a Tarantino man appears in a Leccese fond and vice versa — it is not a filing error.
Digitisation is recorded as Completa, which for a series this long makes Lecce one of the more searchable southern archives at distance.
Continue your research
One undivided series to 1941. For comuni now in Brindisi or Taranto, earlier records begin here.
Archivio di Stato di Lecce on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its stato civile and the joint military district.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
One series, and a shared military district
The Stato civile covers 1809-1941: birth, marriage, death and — from 1866 — citizenship registers, produced in second copy by the civil status officers of the comuni of the province. There is no tribunal division to establish and no inventory gap to work around.
The citizenship series from 1866 is the one researchers most often overlook. It records mostly changes of residence, which in a province of this emigration rate documents movement that no other register captures — including returns.
The military holdings are shared with Taranto and that is the complication. The Distretto militare di Lecce e di Taranto covers classes 1844-1925, and the Ufficio di leva di Lecce covers classes 1871-1942. Because Taranto was part of Terra d'Otranto until 1923, and Brindisi until 1927, a man from either may be enrolled through Lecce.
And for anything before 1927, remember that this archive's territory was the whole of Terra d'Otranto — Brindisi's and Taranto's records begin here.
The province
Terra d'Otranto, and the Greek south
The modern Province of Lecce dates from the post-unification provincial order of 1861, but the territorial reality is far older: Terra d'Otranto, one of the great provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, administered from Lecce and covering the whole heel of Italy. It was divided in the 1920s, Taranto separating in 1923 and Brindisi in 1927, which is why the Lecce archive is the starting point for all three.
The Salento's deep history is Greek and then Byzantine. Otranto is the easternmost town in Italy and was the Byzantine administrative centre of the region; its cathedral holds a twelfth-century mosaic floor of the Tree of Life, and the ossuary of the eight hundred martyrs killed after the Ottoman siege of 1480 is in its chapel. Byzantine rule lasted here for five centuries and left a Greek-rite population that persisted into the modern period.
Lecce itself was rebuilt in the seventeenth century in the soft golden limestone that carves easily, producing the barocco leccese — a local baroque so distinctive that the stone itself is named for the city.
The province is agricultural and was overwhelmingly so: olives above all, on a plain of red soil, with vines and tobacco. Its emigration from the 1880s ran to the Americas and, in the twentieth century, heavily to northern Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
Culture & traditions
Grecia Salentina, tarantism and the olive plain
The Grecia Salentina is the province's most distinctive inheritance. Nine comuni — Calimera, Martano, Sternatia, Zollino, Corigliano d'Otranto, Martignano, Soleto, Melpignano and Castrignano dei Greci — speak or spoke Griko, a Greek dialect descended from the Byzantine and possibly the ancient Greek presence. It survived a thousand years of Latin administration, and a family from these comuni may have names recorded in two traditions.
Tarantism belongs to this province more than anywhere: the ritual of the tarantate, women whose affliction was treated by days of music and dance, documented into the 1950s and 60s by Ernesto de Martino's fieldwork at Galatina, where the chapel of San Paolo was the site of the cure. The pizzica danced today descends from it.
The olive plain dominated the economy, and the trees were among the oldest in Europe until Xylella fastidiosa began killing them from 2013 — a family returning to see the grove their grandparents worked may find it gone.
Gallipoli on the Ionian side lived by fishing and by the lamp-oil trade, shipping olive oil across Europe from underground frantoi ipogei cut into the rock.
Otranto and the Adriatic coast look east, and always have.
Province established
1861
Comuni covered
96
Historic names
Terra d'Otranto · Circondario di Lecce · Circondario di Gallipoli · Grecia Salentina · Distretto militare di Lecce e Taranto
Languages & dialects
Italian · Salentino · Griko in the Grecia Salentina · Gallipolino coastal varieties
Traditions
tarantism and the pizzica · Griko language and song · barocco leccese · the olive groves and Xylella · Gallipoli's oil trade
The modern Province of Lecce dates from the post-unification provincial order of 1861; this is used as the institutional province marker rather than the much older Terra d'Otranto territorial history.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Lecce
This is a straightforward archive by southern standards and can usually be worked in one visit or one letter. Bring the comune, an approximate year and the act type.
Ask about the citizenship registers from 1866 if the family moved or returned. In a province with this emigration rate they document movement that births and deaths do not.
If the comune is now in Brindisi or Taranto and the event is before 1927 or 1923 respectively, start here rather than there.
For a Grecia Salentina family, expect Griko name forms alongside Italian ones and do not treat a variant as a different person. Write ahead with the comune and the period.
What to see
Otranto — the easternmost town in Italy, its mosaic floor and the martyrs' ossuary.
The Grecia Salentina — Calimera, Martano, Sternatia and the Griko-speaking comuni.
Galatina — the chapel of San Paolo, and the tarantism documented there.
Lecce — the barocco leccese, carved in the stone named for the city.
Gallipoli — the island old town, and the underground oil mills cut into rock.
Santa Maria di Leuca — the point where the Adriatic meets the Ionian.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Lecce represented?
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