MONTE DI PROCIDA

Monte di Procida is one of the locality better exposed of the entire Phlegraean area, so it is naturally more panoramic. From everywhere you can enjoy a beautiful and amazing view overlooking the gulf of Pozzuoli, the Phlegraean Fields, the mountains Vesuvio and Faito which leak out from the haze, Ischia, Procida and the isle of St. Martino.

During the night hours the scenery is remarkably more charming, it has nothing to envy to the famous one, known all around the world, of the gulf of Naples seen from the hills of Posillipo.

You can reach Monte di Procida thanks to two main roads.

The first one, the Panoramic and it could not have a different name, links the Commune of Bacoli with the one of Monte di Procida. Its route offers views of rare beauty. The other one, which links it to Torregaveta and then to the provincial road to Naples, gives almost aerial views of the surrounding zones, emphasizing the Lake Fusaro (Acherusia Palus), the so-called Roman beach and Cumae, on whose seashore they break the restless waters of the sea.

It is a very amazing show; nature can be now sweet and caressing, now violent and austere.

Administratively separated from the commune of Procida, there is local autonomy since 1907. Its name comes from the fact that it was the highest mount in the territory of Procida. About its denomination, we cannot forget those thesis, which identified it now with Monte of Cumae, now with Monte of Miseno.

… In this commune, they ripened historically interesting events, among which the most important is for sure the revolt against the dictator Aristodemo of Cumae.

Gianni Picone “Da Posillipo a Cuma”

History

… Since Monte di Procida was a wide green carpet of vines and a casket of famous wines, to the moment when it deflagrated the passionate construction of the fleet of the miracles – epic page of a generation of heroes and of a people  – the picture is completed by photographs and artistic postcards.

And in such a fervour of activity, in a scenery worthy of an oriental fable, this community, which gave back the ancient flavours of the strong Falerno and the delicate Ulbano, sumptuous wines of the Greek-Roman Cumae, renovated not only the deeds of the Euboaen fleet, from where they disembarked the first colonialists of the Phlegraean Fields and the fame of the imperial fleet of Miseno, but also the bold audacity of the smart Ulysses, whom Dante made say:

“Nati non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza …”,
"You were not born to live like brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge ...",

almost a manifesto of the seamen, a symbolic motto of faithful and courageous men.

… The pure astonishment for the sublime landscapes, when they were still uncontaminated, which blossom like corollas painted by Van Gogh from the sea and the near lakes, keeping the secular sorcery of the mythological mysteries: in the background there is Cumae, mother of the Phlegraean people and of the metropolitan Naples one, with the Sybil as queen magician.

On the other side it stands out Procida, the isle of the deep roots and along the horizon it spreads the necklace of all the pearls of the Parthenopean archipelago.

We can also admire the fanciful foregrounds of the masters' paintings: the geometries of spires and tuffaceous cliffs, which remind ages of volcanic turbulences and remote geologic shakings, which gave birth to fabulous bijous like the islet of St. Martino or the splendid yellow of Torregaveta and the cerulean silver of the sea of Acquamorta, at the foot of the barren hilly wall.

Close to the beach, where the legendary Aeneas got ashore with his crew, fugitive from the destroyed Troy, the embankment planted with trees of the “Selva Gallinaria” hid the attacks of the pirates of Sextus Pompeius' military troops, at war against Caesar Octavian (Strabone, Geografia, IV, 4). The wood stretched “for many stadiums, without water and sandy ”, as far as the occidental base of the Mount.

Here they wrecked, among the rocks, some  of Octavian's ships, in 38 B.C., pierced by the rostra of the enemies. It was this way that the future Augustus touched the steep land of the Mount ,“not far from Cumae. He jumped out of the ship on the stones and the rocky blocks and, gradually gathering from the sea the ones who swam to safety, he took them on the mountain behind” (Appiano, Le guerre civili, V, 85-86, paragraphs 359-369).

… There is Monte Grillo with the shadows of soft freshness and the houses which are white of lime and light and give a sense of intimate country joy and of cleanness.

… the population of the Mount, included Cappella, reached 3665 inhabitants, officially registered during the census of 1881. There were 25 streets, of which two were provincial, 11 communal and 9 local: for a total length of 13.785 kilometres, 1.538 with a pavement of volcanic rocks.

… The encounter between the cities of Ithaca and Monte di Procida signed another magic moment in the history of the Phlegraean city. It was the destiny that the two communities which probably vaunted the most ancient and the youngest seafaring tradition of the Mediterranean Sea, met on the route of the incomparable Ulysses, the emblem of courage and intelligence. Maybe now it can be easier to find the way of uniting and celebrating the glories of the past with the so much auspicate crossing, which from the ports of the ancient Cumae lands on the rocky Ithaca of the Homeric legend.

Gianni RACE “Immagini dal passato”