Situated on the ancient Roman settlement of Casarano di parvum, the church has very ancient origins dating back to between the 5th and 6th centuries AD.
Its original function is not well known; it could have served as a baptismal church, but the possibility of containing a sacred relic, perhaps that of the Holy Cross, is not excluded.
With the 10th century, the first frescoes were found, with Greek inscriptions and in pure Byzantine style. Until the end of the 14th century, the church of Casaranello played a fundamental role in Terra d’Otranto.
Its rediscovery was due to the scholar Haseloff who at the beginning of the 20th century defined the monument as the oldest and most important of the early Christian era in the south-east of southern Italy.
Among the oldest paintings, a Virgin with Child stands out. A fresco full of hieraticism that represents one of the greatest expressions of Byzantine painting, with the blessing of the Child in the Greek style.
The two protagonists are aligned and the Virgin shows the Son as if he were a case and had no weight.
On the front pillar, the last one on the right, is frescoed Saint Barbara. Belonging to the same pictorial cycle, but probably attributable to a different hand than the previous fresco. Saint Barbara wears, as iconography dictates, sumptuous Byzantine clothes, with showy earrings of Byzantine origin.
On the right aisle, near the opening that leads to the sacristy, we have a “Virgin giving a flower to the Child”, a painting from the 14th century. The eyes of the Protagonist are striking, full of piety and mystique. At the bottom right, the patron can be seen in prayer and devotion.
The fresco of Urban V once covered that of Saint Barbara and is now hanging in the right nave. The pontiff is seated on a throne. The identity of the saint is corroborated by the presence of the heads of Saints Peter and Paul, on a tray.
A late Swabian cycle frescoes the martyrdom of Saints Catherine and Margaret on the vault. Marked by a lively expressive vein, they are dated around the years 1250-1260.
On the back wall of the apse, on the barrel vault, a beautiful mosaic shines with a thousand shades of colour, highlighted by frames that intertwine in two symmetrical squares and which host zoomorphic and phytomorphic motifs inside.
We can recognize a twig with red-pink pears, a bunch of grapes, two ducks crouching on a yellow gold flower, a fish, a hare biting into a bunch of grapes, a cockerel advancing between two twigs.
In the right sector we find depicted some broad beans, an artichoke, a hen, a crouching hare biting into a bunch of grapes, a bird with a long tail.
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