The civic coat of arms of Novoli has a white background and represents a spray of vines with  two leaves and three bunches of grapes. The presence of man during the Bronze age is testified by the rests of an ancient menhir called "Pietragrossa".  The origins of the first village are still today uncertain and Arditi's theory is the most probable. He maintains that in the past at Novoli there were just three churches dedicated to  St. John,  St. Saviour and St. Mary. nearby there was the Casale of  Porziano, situated in a damp and marshy place. Because of the unhealthy climate  the inhabitants of Porziano decided to move near the churches, thus founding a new casale they called Santa Maria Nova.  In the XVI century the centre was called Novole and, only in the XVII century Novoli. The first certain news about Novoli date back to  the beginning of the XVI century, when the feud was a property of the Earls of Palmariggi, the Matteis. Later Novoli was governed by the Castriota Scanderbegs until 1806. One of the most important and tragic events that afflicted this small town was the epidemic (1707) that reduced the population drastically. Some people tell that, the  priest dreamt about the Madonna who recommended to him  that everyone should eat some blessed bread. As soon as they ate the blessed bread the epidemic stopped. At Novoli there are a lot of well-known people as Gaetano Degli Atti (a priest), Filippo Mattei (a scholar), Vincento  Tarantini (a priest and a teacher), Francesco Guerrieri (a poet, a theologian and a philosopher), Francesco Orlando (a philosopher and a physician). The most famous is Oronzo Parlangeli, who was born in 1923 and, after graduating at the Catholic University of Milan, he became a very good teacher of literature . He taught at the University of Bari,  Messina and Lecce. He studied  the history of the Salento and he wrote many works. He died in  1969, after a tragic road accident.