Historical Center

The only part of the Greek defensive wall still remaining is under the road at the Porta Parsano Nuova (new Parsano Gate) and can be viewed close to the same door. Another ruin of the Greek wall other than that of the Marina Grande Gate and very limited in size is the small tract (just over three metres) of the western end located in via Sopra Le Mura. The Roman town was built over the Greek one following the same urban plan with walls of large isodomic blocks. These walls stood to defend Sorrento through the Middle Ages. Rebuilding began in 1551 and was only completed in 1561 after the tragic Turkish invasion.

  

In Baroque style this church was completed in the XVIII century. The site of the congregation of the servants of Maria, it conserves inside a wooden statue of the dead Christ, by an unknown sculptor which is carried during the Good Friday procession by confratemity members in black robes and hoods.

  

Noteworthy is the belltower’s base from the Romanic era probably built around the VIth century with various types of trunks of columns, alternating classic and Byzantine capitals with a base of statues and every type of marble fragments. In the two highly raised arches and on the columns placed at the corners its clearly Byzantine accent can be noted. This construction is important to the town’s urban history since the small spaces under the raised arches and adjoining bend onto Via Pietà at the beginning of the Bishop’s Palace were used for years for public gatherings before these were held inside the castle. The upper part of the tower was either rebuilt or at least greatly reduced to its present size around the XVth century.

  

The facade of this building exhibits valuable acute-arched mullioned windows in dark tufo in various shapes and designs, with small arches and lobed rosewindows. There is a beautiful large window with an overhanging pointed arch which rests on polystyle piers upheld by corbers and crowned by Gothic capitals of acanthus leaves, in the keystone of the arch the coat-of-arms is incised. The portal is characteristically Neapolitan -a depressed arch with Durazzesque Catalan patterns and was used from the end of the 1300s all through the 1400s.

  

In the main square, once called largo of the castle, exactly at the corner where Via Pietà begins another Correale Palace is located. The inscription on the portal’s marble scroll ornament bears the date 1768 but it is known that as early as the XVth century a house belonging to this family stood here and was later totally transformed by the 17th century reconstruction.

 

In the corner which Via S. Cesareo forms with the Tasso Square where the Sorrentine club is now located there once stood a second Seat called Porta because it was originally built near the city’s main gate in the area then called Largo del Castello. After the abolition of the seats it was first turned into a prison and then a guard-house for the urban militia and finally a meeting place for the Sorrentine club.

 

The fifteenth century Church which includes a convent of a closed order of Dominican Nuns, was founded by the nobile sorrentine Lady Berardina Donnorso at the end of the 15th century. The church has a single nave and treasures esteemed works of southern italian painters who painted in the period between the end of the 15th and beginning of the 17th centuries, such as S. Buono, M. Malinconico, P. Caracciolo and B. Corenzio.

 

On the right of the road which from the F. S. Gargiulo Square leads to the Vittoria Square is the entrance to the Imperial Tramontano which incorporates two rooms left from the house where Torquato Tasso, author of Jerusalem Liberated, was born in 1544.

 

At number 11 Via S. Nicola is the Fasulo House, once the Sersale House (noteworthy the ashlar-work portico and pretty little balcony). Cornelia Tasso, Torquato’s sister and Marzio Sersale’s wife lived here, and continued to after she was widowed with her sons Antonino and Alessandro. In July 1577 Torquato escaped from the castle of Ferrara and embarked at Gaeta to present himself here disguised as the poet’s messenger later revealing his true identity. He stayed with his sister until December, then left for Rome. In the entrance hall is a vault decorated with stems, military trophies and inscriptions from 1615 in memory of the poet...

  

DOMINOVA SEAT

This the only remaining testimony in Campania of the old noble seats and dates to the WXIth century. It has a quadrilateral form with two corner arches in piperno (lava) permitting the view of the interior of the cupola and the end walls with 18th century frescoes. The pilasters and polystyle arches with their capotals are in archaic style. The 17th century cupola is formed by green and yellow majolica roof-tiles.