History of Sorrento

 

 

 

 

 

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History of Sorrento                                    (Back to Sorrento main information page)

Sorrento was first a Phoenician colony, becoming then a port frequented by the Greeks for the commercial activity with Naples and with others southern cities.

It was named by the Greeks ?Syrenusion? or ?Syreon? (Siren?s land), in relation to the Sirens (creatures that with their song could fascinate the sailors) that Homer told in his famous work ?Odyssey?.

After the rule of Oscans and Sannites, the area was submitted by the Romans who elected the area an holiday destination, as the numerous villas prove.

Sorrento was also the native country of Torquato Tasso and from time Sorrento has exercised a particular charm which has attracted poets and literary men like Goethe, Lamartine, Stendhal, De Bouchard, Byron to D?Annunzio, Ibsen, Douglas, musicians like Rossini, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, painters like Pinelli, Fernet, Lindstrom, photographers like De Luca and the brothers Alinari, directors like De Sica, Gallone and Mastronardo. Among the famous visitors of Sorrento we can remember also Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Casanova, Scipione Breislak, Marion Crawford, Charles Dickens, Helman Melvill, Friedtich Nietzche ed Axel Munthe. This coasting town was included in the eighteenth- century among the main destinations of the Ground Tour, a journey among the most significant Italian cities, that was made by the foreign intellectuals who wanted to study in depth the Italian history, art and culture.

 

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