Capri

• 1. Introduction

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  Capri is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, sitting off the tip of the Sorrento Peninsula at the southern edge of the Gulf of Naples. It covers just 10.4 square kilometres. In that compact space, Roman emperors built a dozen villas, nineteenth-century artists fled the constraints of northern Europe, and a writer once described the island's highest point, Monte Solaro, as rising 589 metres above a coastline of sheer limestone cliffs. Even today, the central square in the main town fills every summer with visitors who arrive by ferry from Naples and walk up through the funicular to a piazza the locals simply call the Piazzetta. What draws them here? What drew Tiberius, who moved permanently to Capri and governed the entire Roman Empire from its shores? And how did a rocky outcrop with no airport and no room for private cars become one of the most visited places in the Mediterranean? The answers reach back before recorded history and wind through pirates, emperors, poets, and painters.

• 2. Stone, Bone, and Name

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  Archaeological digs on Capri have turned up human traces from the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Long before the Romans arrived, Greek colonists from Magna Graecia had already settled the island and given it a name: Kapreai. The origin of that name is genuinely contested. One strong candidate is the Ancient Greek word kápros, meaning wild boar, and that theory gains weight from the fossil record. Bones of wild boars have been found on Capri, suggesting the animals once roamed its ridges. A competing Latin reading points to capreae, the word for goats, which would have been equally visible on the rugged terrain. A third, less favoured theory traces the name to an Etruscan root meaning rocky. The limestone landscape that covers much of the island would have made that epithet apt regardless of which etymology is correct. The Roman poet Virgil, writing in the Aeneid, placed the original Greek settlers as coming from the Ionian Islands, the Teleboi people. The geographer Strabo added a practical detail: Capri once had two towns but was later reduced to one.

• 3. Emperors and Exile

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  Emperor Augustus was the first Roman ruler to develop Capri systematically, commissioning villas, temples, aqueducts, and gardens across the island. His historian, Suetonius, left an odd footnote: when workers dug the foundations for Augustus's villa, they unearthed giant bones and stone weapons. Augustus reportedly put these on display in his residence, the Palazzo a Mare. Modern analysis suggests they were likely fossils of large extinct mammals. Augustus's successor, Tiberius, went further. According to the historian Tacitus, Tiberius built twelve villas on Capri. In AD 27 he moved to the island permanently, conducting the affairs of the Roman Empire from its heights until his death in AD 37. The most famous of his villas, Villa Jovis, survives as one of the best-preserved Roman villas anywhere in Italy. Capri also served as a place of punishment: in AD 182, Emperor Commodus exiled his sister Lucilla to the island, where she was subsequently executed.

• 4. Pirates, Popes, and Sieges

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  After the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Capri passed into the orbit of the Duchy of Naples and suffered repeated raids by pirates and Saracens. In 866, Emperor Louis II granted the island to the Duchy of Amalfi. Pope John XV established the Diocese of Capri in 987, making it a suffragan to the Archdiocese of Amalfi. That diocese lasted until 1818, when it was absorbed into the Archdiocese of Sorrento. The island was also caught up in the dynastic struggle for the Kingdom of Naples. By July 1399, forces loyal to Ladislaus had besieged the fort of Capri, then held by a garrison supporting Louis II d'Anjou. The French troops escaped execution by slipping away onto the ships of French marshal Boucicaut, who happened to be passing en route to fight in the Aegean. In 1496, King Frederick IV of Naples established administrative parity between the settlements of Capri and Anacapri. The sixteenth century brought the Ottoman admirals Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and Turgut Reis, who seized the island in 1535 and 1553 respectively.

• 5. A Second Gibraltar

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  The Napoleonic Wars brought a new kind of conflict to Capri. French troops occupied the island in January 1806, but the British expelled them that May and established a naval base they called a Second Gibraltar. The occupation left a mixed legacy: the British base damaged several archaeological sites during its construction. The French returned in 1808 and held Capri until 1815, when the island was returned to the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. Against this military backdrop, a French antiquarian named Jean-Jacques Bouchard had visited in the seventeenth century and is considered one of the first modern tourists; his diary remained a valuable source. In the nineteenth century, naturalist Ignazio Cerio catalogued Capri's flora and fauna. His son Edwin Cerio, an author and engineer, continued that work and wrote about life on the island. A pivotal moment for public awareness came from a different source: in 1826, the German August Kopisch published an account of his rediscovery of the Blue Grotto, the sea cave on the island's northwest coast. That account significantly boosted Capri's profile across Europe.

• 6. Artists, Writers, and Refuge

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  From the later nineteenth century onward, Capri drew a particular kind of visitor. European artists, writers, and expatriates arrived in numbers, and the island developed a reputation as a place where social rules were applied loosely. It attracted wealthy gay men and lesbians who found more freedom there than in most of Europe at the time. The list of figures who lived on or spent significant time on Capri is striking: Somerset Maugham, Norman Douglas, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Axel Munthe, Maxim Gorky, Compton Mackenzie, and Romaine Brooks, among others. Lenin visited in 1908 as a guest of Gorky. Oscar Wilde stayed briefly. Dame Gracie Fields also spent time there. Queen Victoria of Baden was a frequent visitor. The German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp funded archaeological work on the island but was forced to leave after accusations of sexual misconduct. Painters including John Singer Sargent, Frank Hyde, and Charles Caryl Coleman worked there. Claude Debussy titled one of his piano preludes Les collines d'Anacapri in 1910. Norman Douglas set his novel South Wind on the island; Compton Mackenzie drew on Capri for Vestal Fire and Extraordinary Women.

• 7. Living on the Rock

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  Today the island's economy runs almost entirely on tourism, particularly during July and August, when ferries arrive from Naples, Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi. Visitors land at Marina Grande and ride the Capri Funicular up to the Piazzetta. A bus network reaches Marina Piccola, Anacapri, and the Blue Grotto. Private vehicle access for non-residents is restricted for most of the year, roughly April through November, because the roads cannot accommodate the traffic. The island has no airport; the nearest commercial airports are Naples International and Salerno Costa d'Amalfi. Local food production is limited, though some wine, olive oil, and handicrafts supplement the tourism economy. Capri is known in the Campania region for its marjoram, which defines the filling of the island's caciotta-filled ravioli. The international linen brand 100% Capri originated on the island. Concerns about overtourism have grown, and there are ongoing discussions about limiting the number of day-trippers during peak season.

• 8. Sea, Stone, and Celebration

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  The physical island that underlies all this history is a mountainous block of limestone and sandstone covering 10.4 square kilometres. Monte Solaro, at 589 metres, is the highest point. The southeast coast is defined by the Faraglioni, three sea stacks that have become the island's most recognisable silhouette. The Arco Naturale, a large rock arch, rises on the east coast. The Blue Grotto on the northwest coast is the most visited of the island's coastal caves, illuminated by light entering through a submerged opening. Anacapri, the upper town, sits on the western slopes of Monte Solaro and is administratively separate from the lower town of Capri. The island marks its own calendar with precision. The Festival of San Costanzo, patron saint of Capri town, falls on the 14th of May. Anacapri celebrates the Festival of Sant'Antonio on the 13th of June. The Settembrata Anacaprese harvest festival runs in September. And the Capri Hollywood International Film Festival takes place in late December and early January, extending the island's cultural calendar well past the summer season.