Sorrento once had a temple to the Sirens, unique in the Greek world
Sorrento, perched above the Bay of Naples, was known in antiquity for wine and fish rather than the lemons that now flavour its limoncello; citrus had not yet reached Italy. Legend tied the town to Ulysses and the Sirens, and its street plan still follows the lines laid out in Roman times.
The town sits on the Sorrentine Peninsula looking across to Naples, Vesuvius and Capri, reached by the Circumvesuviana railway and by ferries and hydrofoils to Capri, Ischia, Positano and Amalfi. The cliff-hugging Amalfi Drive links it to the coast beyond. Local shops are known for small ceramics, lace and inlaid woodwork, and the surrounding land yields citrus, olives, nuts and wine as well as limoncello, made from lemon peel, alcohol, water and sugar.
People lived here from the eighth century BC, and the oldest ruins of Roman Surrentum are Oscan, from about 600 BC. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus recorded a legend that its founder descended from Ulysses and Circe, and its great sanctuary, supposedly founded by Ulysses, was dedicated to the Sirens, the only temple to them known in the historic Greek world. Deep gorges protected the site so well that walls were needed along only about 300 metres. Wealthy Romans built villas nearby; a small theatre was found under a hotel terrace in 1855, and an aqueduct reservoir with twenty-seven chambers survives outside town. After the earthquake of 79 AD the emperor Titus restored its public clock.
Sorrento became an archbishopric around 420 AD and survived a Lombard siege. By the ninth century it was an autonomous duchy with popularly elected rulers who fought Amalfi and Saracen raiders, sending forces to the battles of Licosa in 846 and Ostia in 849. Roger II of Sicily ended its independence in 1137. On 13 June 1558 an Ottoman fleet under Dragut sacked the town and reportedly carried off 2,000 captives, prompting new walls; the raid was part of Suleiman's war with Spain rather than simple piracy.
Nineteenth-century roads, agriculture and trade brought prosperity, and the town joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. It became one of the country's most famous resorts, drawing Byron, Keats, Goethe, Nietzsche and Ibsen. Good Friday is still marked by two historic processions run by local confraternities.
Source: Sorrento
