A long history of prestigious visitors
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Because of their strategic position, secure location and protection provided by the deep gorges, the ports of Sorrento and Amalfi were frequented by the Greeks for commercial activity with Naples and other southern cities. They were later discovered by Roman patricians who holidayed there and erected their imperial villas on the sea starting from the first century B.C.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Sorrento ruled itself as a maritime republic, and then as a duchy, and Amalfi gained prestige as one of the four most prosperous Italian maritime republics, together with Venice, Genoa, and Pisa (between the 10th and the 13th centuries).
In 1558 the coastal cities and towns of Amalfi where invaded by the Turks. Many Saracen towers remain from that time when they sacked the coast filling up their ships with gold and young women torn from the numerous cloisters.
In the 18th century Sorrento was included among the main destinations of the Grand Tour, a journey among Italian cities chosen by foreign intellectuals who wanted to study Italian history, art and culture in depth.
Poets, writers, musicians, painters and other artists who visited Sorrento and left traces in their works where: Goethe, Lamartine, Stendhal, De Bouchard, Byron to D’Annunzio, Ibsen, Douglas, Rossini, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Pinelli, Fernet, Lindstrom, Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Casanova, Scipione Breislak, Marion Crawford, Charles Dickens, Helman Melville, Friedrich Nietzsche, Axel Munte, De Luca and the brothers Alinari, Luciano Pavarotti, De Sica, Gallone and Mastronardo. There is a marble plate in front of the Sorrento Correale museum, which lists the names of the most important visitors. The town was also the native country of Torquato Tasso. In 1902, the brothers Enrico and Gianbattista De Curtis composed their song “Torna a Surriento” which became famous the world over.
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