The coat of arms of Copertino is marked by a pine, and along the sides there are two letters: "C" and "P" standing for "Conventium Popolorum" from which the name of the village comes from. Its origins are still today obscure: it might have been founded in 942 when the Saracens destroyed the Casali of Cigliano, Santa Barbara, Mollone and Pozzovivo; quite on the ruins of these casali Copertino was built. In 1088 the Normans made a Latin temple erect: they were succeeded by the Swabians that governed the small town until the arrival of the Angevins led by Gualtieri di Brienne, (count of Lecce and duke of Athens) who made a stately tower build in 1266. After the Briennes Copertino was governed by the D'Enghiens, and when the Aragoneses defeated the Angevins, by the Castriotas until 1547. When Copertino returned under the control of the crown, the Spanish soldiers razed it to the ground and took all the riches of that town to their ships. In 1557 Copertino was sold to Umberto Squarciafico and, after the marriage of his daughter, Livia, with Galeazzo Pinelli, the Pinellis governed for two centuries. Later Antonio Pignatelli married the last heir of the Pinellis and his family was succeeded by the Belmontes (after the marriage between Francesca Paolina Pignatelli and Angelo Granito). Among the most important people of Copertino there are: Adriano Preite (a famous architect), Evangelista Menga (an engineer of King Charles V), Antonio Briganti (a famous physician at the court of Ferdinand IV of Borbone), Dioniso from Copertino, Giovanni Bernardino Desa, Aleardo Trifone Nutricati and Giuseppe Desa, better known as St. Giuseppe from Copertino, who having been miraculously healed when he was still a child, entered the order of the Minor Conventual Friars, spent a very hard life, respecting of the rules of his order. He performed a lot of miracles and he died in 1663 when he was sixty; he was declared saint in 1767 by the Pope Clemente XIII.