CAMEROTA - CILENTO

Visit the splendid CamerotaThe history of the municipality is linked to a legend: Palinuro, the helmsman of Aeneas, along the coasts of the Cilento, fell in love with a beautiful girl named Kamaratòn. She did not return to Palinuro love, which, in despair, followed her into the seabed and loses the life. Venus, goddess of love, incensed by the cruelty of Kamaratòn, turned it into rock, just the current outcrop on which stands the village of Camerota capital, condemning her to look for ever her lover rejected.But in reality, it seems that Camerota was founded in the sixth century. B.C. by Phocaeans, the same Greek people who founded the city of Elea Velia. Its name derives from the greek Kamaratòn, ie arched constructionThe town developed around a fortified castle in the years 535-553, during the war between the Goths and the Byzantines; succeeded several rules: Norman, Arab, Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese up to the recent period of the Bourbon dynasty ended with the unification of Italy.Despite being a fortified city, it was occupied and sacked several times by the Saracens, who occupied dall'868 to 915. The castle of Camerota was 909 in the second stronghold of Cilento, along with Agropoli.In July 1552 the powerful Turkish army, commanded by General Rais Dragut Bessa, attacked the citadel devastating, looting and killing. Many were taken prisoner. After these events were restored and built many watchtowers.Then the Marquis of Camerota saw the alternation of various noble families, such as the Sanseverino, the Di Sangro, the Marquis and the Orsini. On 23 July 1647 a bloody uprising in Camerota, in the period of revolution of Masaniello, ended with the death of the feudal lord, Paul Marchese, who had tried to restore the Droit de seigneur. The camerotani enraged and killed him to pieces which then disseminated a little everywhere. In the same year Licusati (ancient village de accasati them) ceased to be an independent town and was incorporated in Camerota. In 1881, a sailor of Marina di Camerota, Pietro Troccoli, with Captain Antonio Fondacaro of Bagnara and the sailor Orlando Grassoni of Ancona, a company accomplished legendary: on the legendary schooner Leon of Caprera crossed the ocean, starting from Montevideo , to deliver a golden sword and a book of signatures to Giuseppe Garibaldi.