SAPRI

Sapri lies on an alluvial coastal plain delimited by a small, semi-circular bay seawards and by the Apennine Mountains inland. Its splendid beaches and tree-lined seafront attract numerous visitors during the holiday season.
Local cuisine is based on traditional and genuine Cilento fare. The tranquil and placid atmosphere of the town was once the subject of a national newspaper article, headlined, “A Sapri non si muore mai” – that is, “One doesn’t die in Sapri”.
Sapri’s has origins in the Bronze Age, as testified by the remains of several such settlements discovered nearby. Herodotus narrates that when Sibari was razed to the ground by the Crotoniati in 510 B.C., a group of exiles found refuge in a legendary town called Skidros, an ancient Greek colony dedicated to trading with the Lucanian peoples of the hinterland. Present day Sapri is considered by many scholars to have developed on the site occupied by the mysterious Skidros.
In Roman times the bay and hinterland were held in high esteem, both as a place of residence and as a commercial port. Cicerone, who was a frequent and enthusiastic visitor here, described the place as a “Parva gemma maris inferi” – a little jewel of the southern sea. In the 1st century A.D. a grandiose patrician villa was built on the western side of the bay. This construction was enlarged during the imperial era and the emperor Maximilian Erculius retired there following his abdication. His son, Massenzio was present in the villa at the time of his being proclaimed emperor.
Originally the villa comprised numerous buildings, baths, a theatre and a small port, but what remains of it is now under the sea, covered by a thick field of poseidonia seaweed.
In the early nineteen hundreds a memorial stone dating from the 1st century A.D. was discovered near the site of the villa, the stone is now in Sapri’s Piazza Plebiscito. The ruins of numerous farms and roads from Roman times can be seen on the higher ground surround the bay.
During the middle ages encroaching swampland and the consequent unhealthy environmental conditions caused the inhabitants of Sapri to abandon the settlement.
Two watch towers, that of Capobianco and Mezzanotte, were later erected on the Sapri coast as part of the defenses against pirate incursions.
Present day Sapri was born in the 17th century, when the small seaside village of Marinella was built in the area. The churches of St John the Baptist (later destroyed during the second world war and subsequently rebuilt), St Anthonio of Padua, the Immacolata, and the Holy Rosary chapel were built during this period.
Expansion of the town continued until the second half of the 18th century, with its streets and roads being laid out perpendicularly and parallel to the coastline. A Scottish traveler, one Crufurd Traid Ramage, wrote of the town, “This town is one of the most prosperous looking that I have seen so far…”.
By the beginning of the nineteen hundreds, the town had assumed its present day look. The Santa Croce Institute, situated on the western side of the bay, and the Buon Pastore building – in the Villa Comunale - were constructed during the latter period.
A few years earlier, on July 2nd 1857, the famous “Expedition of the Three-hundred” led by Carlo Pisacane, landed at Sapri. This ill-fated undertaking was immortalized in Luigi Mercantini’s “La Spigolatrice di Sapri”. A commemorative centenary obelisk in Largo Trecento, a statue of the hero in the Villa Comunale (1933), and an evocative statue depicting the Spigolatrice reclining on a rock known as Lo Scialandro, whilst looking towards the spot on the beach where the “three hundred” landed, are further reminders of the expedition.
The expedition is commemorated each summer when the landing is re-enacted on the beach in period costume.