Tour to Amalfi & Ravello

What is the trip about

The most important monument of Amalfi is the Cathedral of Sant’Andrea, in Arabian style, which comes from an overlap of various buildings, and which is one of the few “composed” cathedrals in Italy. Composed because it is made up of several churches, one next to the other, built in different periods and then reunited. The original building dates back to the 6th century, and was probably built to replace an earlier pagan temple. Only in the following centuries, around 750-800, was built a second building, a real cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Assumption of Mary, the then protector of Amalfi. The central body instead, dedicated to Sant’Andrea, was built in the following centuries, by order of Duke Mansone I. Over the centuries several changes were made to the Cathedral, especially in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: among these we mention in particular the altar and the bell tower. The second most important religious building in Amalfi is certainly the Church of Santa Maria a Piazza, with a Byzantine painting depicting a black Madonna with child. As tradition dictates, every year the Regatta of the Ancient Maritime Republics is held, with the participation of Amalfi along with Pisa, Genoa and Venice. The regatta, which takes place every year since 1854, was created to commemorate the splendor of the Maritime Republics, which from the 10th to the 18th century wrote an important part of Italian history, as well as that of the other countries bordering the Mediterranean. Thanks to their centrality in maritime commercial traffic, they succeeded in considerably improving the local economy, leading to considerable development. The historic regatta of the maritime republics is held every year in one of the various localities: in Amalfi, or in Pisa, on the Arno, or in the Lagoon of Venice, or in the port of Genoa.

Located in Piazza del Vescovado, next to the Duomo, stands the fifteenth-century Villa Rufolo, whose watchtower still today seems to closely observe the whole city. Built on behalf of the wealthy bourgeois family of the Rufolo, traders at the time known and powerful enough to be mentioned in the Decamerone, the construction passed later passed from hand to hand, until it was sold in the nineteenth century to the Scottish nobleman Francis Neville, who developed restoration, making it as we see it today. The villa reveals in the appearance of several architectural elements a strong influence of Arab culture, in particular in the large Moorish cloister structured with a double loggia and porticoes with a pointed arch, embellished with graceful carved decorations, and in the raised courtyard. The greatest wonder of Villa Rufolo are the magnificent flower gardens, a place loved by Richard Wagner, where today, in the flowery terraces overlooking the blue sea of ​​the Amalfi coast and the gulf of Salerno, the Wagnerian Festival is celebrated in memory of the great German musician , one of the initiatives that has made Ravello the “City of Music” par excellence. Another beautiful and famous Ravello building is Villa Cimbrone, built on a rock overlooking the Gulf of Salerno, in the place where once stood a Roman villa, later transformed into an agricultural farmhouse. It is a building designed and rebuilt by double hand, Italian and English, by the builder Nicola Mansi and the English lord William Beckett, who magically transformed the ruined farmhouse into a sort of garden of wonders, with a magnificent interweaving of the rigor of the Italian style and the luxuriant frame of the English nobleman, fond of botany. The result, fascinating and highly suggestive, is a mix of local and ethnic styles, a meeting point between the period villa and the antique gallery, almost a travel diary of an explorer transformed into a dwelling. The large park of the villa, in particular, is a labyrinthine path between Gothic and classical architecture, including statues, temples, bridges, caves and fountains, until you reach the fantastic Belvedere of the Infinite, a huge panoramic terrace facing the sublime view of the open sea of ​​the Gulf of Salerno and the coast, a place particularly loved by the writer Gore Vidal. Today the villa is used to host public and private events. The Duomo di Ravello, dating back to the 13th century, reveals artistic pieces of great value and exciting beauty, including the remarkable central portal, made of wood and 80 iconographic panels in chiselled bronze by Barisano da Trani, the magnificent inlaid pulpit marble, sculpted by Bartolomeo da Foggia and, inside the crypt, the Museo del Duomo, where the artistic and historical works are enclosed and a rich archival section that narrate the history of the city.