Sorrento Live Cam

Sorrento was sung by Homer in his Odyssey and it seems that its name derives from the myth of the Sirens who charmed the navigators with their song and then suffocated them. But Ulysses, the Homeric hero, with an expedient managed to pass unscathed along the Sorrento coast and the Sirens were transformed into islets of the "Li Galli" located near the coast.

Another legend dating back to 1558 tells us that during the invasion of the Turks, on the night of June 13, they broke into the church of the patron saint S. Antonino, sacking and killing the citizens, took the silver statue of the saint and a bell.

When they loaded their loot, materials and humans, onto their ships they noticed that the boat the bell was on was unable to move due to too much weight. They therefore decided to get rid of the bell and threw it into the sea near the Head of Athenaeum. Since then it has been said that the diving bell tolls every year on June 13, on the anniversary of the sacking. Among the other tourist attractions it is worth lingering again on the "historical and artistic beauties" of Sorrento.

The Sedile Dominova was linked to the public life of Sorrento as a part of the nobility gathered there to discuss politics. It is a large regular space with a square plan; two sides are closed by walls bearing frescoes, while the other two are open with large arches on the via San Cesareo and via giuliani; the imposing dome is from the seventeenth century.

The basilica of S. Antonino was built on the ancient oratory near the tomb of the Saint. It has an ancient Romanesque layout from the 11th century, while the interior, with three naves, divided by ancient columns, was transformed into its present form in 1700. On the ceiling and on the side altars there are some paintings of the Neapolitan school. In the succorpo there are numerous ex-votos from different eras depicting the miracles of St. Antonino.

It often escapes our eyes that we live in a country which, due to its latitude, its geographical position and its mild and temperate climate, is one of the areas of Italy most prone to the cultivation of vines. The characteristics of the grapes are influenced by several factors: the type of soil, the altitude, the climate, the humidity, the exposure which are peculiar characteristics for each area and diversify the types of wine. This is why Italian wines have a regional prerogative. and match perfectly with the local cuisine.

Undoubtedly, the area of ​​the Sorrento peninsula from both a climatic and territorial point of view has favorable characteristics for the production of grapes and wines. The variety of altitude between the plain of Sorrento and the surrounding hills allows for the gradual transition from chestnuts and walnuts to the richness of citrus and olive trees. They are interspersed with vines held high here and generally at the edge of the gardens. The high viticulture system allows Sorrentine farmers to grow oranges and lemons "under the vines" and to exploit the land twice with different crops; they have also adopted the system of pergolas (wooden armours) on which the "straws" rest; these were used to protect the citrus groves in the winter months. In recent years, however, the straws, which represented a characteristic of the Sorrento gardens, have been replaced by modern and robust nets and the wooden pergolas have been supplanted by iron frames.

The intensive exploitation of the soil, obtained through terracing built on the less impervious slopes of the peninsula and the introduction of the cultivation of olives and vines, would go back to pre-Roman times. Over the centuries, Sorrento farmers have increasingly perfected their their techniques both for the production of grapes and for the vinification and this has made possible the production of excellent wines, famous throughout Italy, which go well with and enhance the Mediterranean cuisine.

La Tarantella a Sorrento

The origins of Tarantella are uncertain: the etymology itself is not clear, if it comes from Taranto, a city in which it would have been born around the century. XIII or from tarantula, a spider widespread in southern Italy, and whose bite would cause a bizarre dance: the Tarantella.

Other regions of Italy boast a similar dance, known by the name Saltarello, and it cannot be said in conscience which one was born first. But all historians agree in recognizing that in Naples, and especially in Sorrento, the Tarantella lived its happiest season, so happy that it still lasted, while in the rest of Italy it is not - together with the analogous Saltarello - that a souvenir from an ethnographic museum.

Whether it is a point of departure or arrival, it is certain that here the beautiful dance lives, in its figurations, in the costumes, in the ancient but very fresh grace of gentle folk dance, without even the shadow of that plebeian savoryness that always stains the dances of the people; on the contrary, in an atmosphere of exquisite gracefulness, of enchantment that becomes even poetic in front of the background, then, of the sea of ​​Sorrento.

To free ourselves immediately from the obligation of cultural information, we will say that the rhythm of the Tarantella is always lively, in the movement of 3/8 or more commonly of 6/8: on the melody many texts are sung, popular or of more refined inspiration; while the accompaniment is entrusted to the characteristic instruments, the guitar, the mandolin, often also the accordion, the violin, the double bass. The rhythm is marked by strokes of the tambourine (which is a hand drum, with a single membrane, equipped with metal rattles, decorated with colored ribbons) and castanets, similar to those used in Spain: tambourine and castanets are played by the dancers themselves.

The Tarantella attracted the attention of great travelers, from Goethe to Lamartine, from Stendhal to Burney, who left fascinating descriptions of it. But among those exceptional tourists there were also musicians such as Mendelssohn and Rossigni and Liszt and Martucci: while others, even without ever having been to Sorrento, knew the Tarantella from afar, such as Chopin, Balakirev, Godard, Ciajkowskij, and composed wonderful symphonic pages and from the chamber to the rhythm of the Sorrentine folk dance.

Not to mention the painters, each of whom - from Allan to Ramberg, from Pinelli to Lindstrom to Vernet - sketched some scenes from Tarantella in his album: the intertwining of the hands in the dance, the harmony of the figures, the beauty of the costumes, they could not fail to strike the painters' imagination, just as the flickering of the enthralling rhythm and the originality of the melody stopped the inspiration of the musicians.

Thus there was a small literature of the Neapolitan and Sorrentine Tarantella; and a series of prints, watercolors, drawings scattered in museums and private collections throughout Europe. To the point that shops were opened in which only such works were sold; and lithographers such as Gatti and Dura, Cuciniello and Bianchi and many others, printed thousands of copies of the delightful color reproductions of the Dance which summarized the evocative motifs of the Gulf of Naples, bringing together color and movement, music and dance, mischievous expressiveness and exquisite grace in only one context: the tarantella.

In the eyes of the foreigner, the tarantella appeared (and the wonderful thing is that it continues to appear even today, with its ancient charm) as a summary of the Mediterranean spirit, in the colors, in the movement, in the music that accompanies it. Thus it was that the theme of the tarantella became obligatory for the skilled artisans of brushes and watercolors who supplied the shops of Dura, Richter, Girare (that is, of the Ragazzino and Bowinkel of the time) where the tourists of the early nineteenth century bought the souvenirs of Napoli.

Writers also included this theme in their souvenir books; from De Bourcard, who dedicated a chapter of his Uses and customs of Naples to the suggestive Neapolitan dance, to Mayer, from Presidente de Brosses to the De Gouncourt brothers; in short, the Tarantella conquered, through these rectangles of water-painted paper, a European popularity. The engravers also exploited the theme, and thus there were tarantellas in black and white in etching, on steel, on copper, small, with large white margins that now form the delight of amateurs.