Marina Grande and Villa Tritone

 

It has been a month since the re-opening of the wonderful piece of art and history, which is Marina Grande Ancient Gate. The site, which once was the only way to access the port, dates back to roman times and is linked to the devastating Turkish Invasion in 1558, which almost destroyed Sorrento city. In fact, the story goes that a traitor, slave of the Correale family, opened the gate during the night of the invasion, allowing pirates to plunder the city. The ancient gate, which often figure on Sorrento’s postcards, was threatening to collapse, reason why important recovery activities have begun. During the intervention, the expert restorers discovered a secret ancient passage, which dates back to the sixteenth century, and that allowed entering and exiting the gates of the ancient city, from Marina Grande. Endless tunnels, long hundreds of meters , dug without delay "offering up" a "hidden path ", a route to take when the city gates were closed in times of: war, bloody battles and sieges, and which is said to emerge near the cave of St. George in Villa Tritone.

The mansion has always been considered one of the most prestigious property of Sorrento also for its position, one of the most beautiful of the Sorrento Peninsula. In fact, as an eagle, the villa overlooks the village of Marina Grande, which was the natural set of the famous movie "Pane, Amore e ..." with Sofia Loren, from a two hundred feet high ridge of tuff, which is dominated by the triangular Vesuvius. Former residence of Agrippa Postumus, grandson of Augustus, the villa became in 1200 the convent of cloistered nuns, violated by the Saracens in 1558. Rebuilt by the Dominicans, the property was honoured by the presence of Torquato Tasso visiting prior to the friar in 1577. Abolished as a monastery in 1799 it passed to the Jesuits in 1835 and was later purchased by Baron Calabrian Labonia who built his house on the ruins the Roman villa of Agrippa, passing later in the hands of the publishing magnate William Waldorf Astor who built the magnificent garden full of exotic plants.

Among the years, the Villa has had several owners, among them the publisher Astor in Geertsema with whom the property definitely took the name of Villa Tritone. In addition to its unparalleled beauty, which we have already talked about earlier, the Villa was made famous also for having given hospitality to: tycoons, intellectuals, aristocrats and artists, in the immediate post-war, among whom figure the philosopher Benedetto Croce during the bombing of Naples in 1942. During those years, the Villa also became the Reference point as well as the counterpart of Villa “La Rufola”, owned by the Marquis Ruffino Benzoni, who for years played host to the death to Gaetano Salvemini, returned from long exile in the United States.

In the sixties, Rita and Mariano Pane bought Villa Tritone, making it recover its past splendour forgotten during the years. Many were the improvements: the reorganization of the apartments, the care of the garden full of exotic and local, some of which are higher than the building itself.  In the Villa we also find many archaeological finds, all of rare beauty, and then basins, grassy paths, areas of greenery, hundreds of steps towards the sea, secret caves and huge tanks, which were in the Roman period, nurseries for fish. When Mariano and Rita began to live at Villa Tritone, they used to receive and accommodate some of the greatest exponents of the international culture, allowing sharing the beauty of this wonderful place to the knowledge of many.

Villa Tritone is today the only Villa in southern Italy, which has been included in the prestigious volume of “Giardini d’Italia” of Marella Caracciolo Agnelli and Federico Forquet.