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AGROPOLI
It rises in the vicinities
of the National Park of the Cilento, in a
coastal zone that turned out already inhabited in prehistoric
time.
Surely the Greeks who founded Paestum
had in the bay trading interests with the italic populations.
They called the place Petra building up a
temple consecrated to the cult of Artemis.
In Roman age the port was known with the name of Ercola
and commercially flourished from the I cent. BC to the end
of the Roman Empire (V cent. AD) together with the decline
of the port of Paestum,
ran aground for the bradyseism of the area.
With the end of the Empire and the advent of Goths
and Vandals, the inhabitants sheltered themselves
on the cape that was later fortified by the Bizantins
who gave to it the name of Akropolis: city
located up.
With the arrival of the Longobards in Campania
region and the fall of Paestum,
Acropoli became an episcopal center flourishing
under the Byzantin dominion until the 882
when it was conquered by Saracens becoming
one of their bases for the numerous incursions in the territory
until the 915, year in which returned to
the bishops who managed it for centuries, both under the Svevians
and the Angioins.
In 1412 Pope Gregorio XII it yielded it to
the king Ladislao di Durazzo as a payment for war debits.
Agropoli then knew the lordship of many families
until it passed to the Sanfelice Dukes in
1660 who held it until 1806.
From this moment it followed the same historical destiny of
the city of Naples.
Agropoli is approached through a door (XVII
cent.) that opens along the defensive town-walls.
Characteristic in the village is also the presence of the
"scaloni's ascent".
Finally you reach the Castle with triangular
plan and 3 circular towers, result of the historical architectonic
evolution of the first Byzantin castle (VI cent.).
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