Ischia, millennial civilization

Saw from the sea soon realized that the island they had before was the right place to stop in their conquest of the West. Those ancient Greek colonists, avventuratisi traveling to the land in the West ", Esperia, Italy had already in mind the wealth that they could reap from the fertile countryside of Italy. Not only were the sailors, expert sailors. Knew the land, cultivate it knew, knew the art of shaping the clay, knew orci make tools and pottery, paint decorations knew geometric beauty, knew the art of bending iron.

When they decided to stay on Ischia, did the awareness that all the land from the sea this stick was the most promising. It begins thus, in the eighth century BC, one of the most fruitful for this island of green campano. While here, on Ischia, civilization had already begun long before as the archaeological finds: in the innermost areas of Ischia have been found flint tools and obsidian of the third millennium BC On the hill of Castiglione, half way between Ischia and Casamicciola were discovered fragments of Mycenaean pottery, dating from the XIV and XV BC (Bronze Age) that show the links with the Aegean-Anatolian world. But the degree of civilization and culture around 770 BC lead the Greeks is extraordinary, the island colony was called "Pithekoussai". Pithekoussai or Italianized, Pithecusa is the oldest greek appropriation of the West, is the dawn of the Magna Grecia.

As George Buchner, 'through Euboea to Pithekoussai, populations Etruscan, Roman and Italic came for the first time in contact with the Hellenic civilization and the artistic products of Eastern ... The most significant achievement was the learning of writing. " Are famous documents of the Cup of Nestor, with its famous three verses, which mark the birth date of writing the alphabet (ca 725 BC) and the Crater of Shipwreck, the first example of vascular painting in the Western world.

Then leave the Greeks, the conquest of new lands of their "Far West", but in all those years spent in Pithecusa were not on our hands. They leave on their agriculture, the cultivation of the vine, the wisdom and craft from the indigenous, many descendants. The beating of wings of history we know is fast, change the conquerors, it also changes the name of the island. The Romans called Aenaria, built their houses and use the thermal waters and particularly those Nitrodi, which were found several bas-reliefs, representing the miraculous water nymphs.

After the disintegration of the Roman Empire, Ischia is also invaded by barbarians, took to Italy. Lost in the wake of the fate of Naples and Campania, with the constant alternation of the various domains, in the early Middle Ages the island has lost its name became simply insula, island. But maybe not so much simply because Island Insula means par excellence. Thus the call in a letter sent to the emperor Charlemagne nell'813, Pope Leo III. Insula in time becomes Insla, Isla, Iscla and finally takes its current name, Ischia. Ischia passes under the dominion of the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevins and Aragonese. In this long period, the heart of the village is a small island in the middle of the sea, in the most east of Ischia: the Aragonese Castle, named for works of fortifications made by Alfonso of Aragon. Aragonese Castle has been a hive of churches, houses and palaces and five hundred, with the arrival of Vittoria Colonna, an explosion of culture and high-friendly label.

And we reach the eighteenth century. I finished the pirate raids, the dynasties of Europe have been consolidated. Even the eruptions are a distant memory, the last in 1301. With the new dynasty of the Bourbons, Ischia regains importance. Charles III implements a policy of social rehabilitation, abolishing the feudal system of d'Avalos, issue edicts against the bandits scattered in the mountains of the island. With King Ferdinand II of Bourbon, Lake Ischia is a port, solemnly inaugurated on 17 September 1854. The Bourbons also realize the important road just call 'Bourbon', which comes from a high Casamicciola Forio.

The last great revolution of the island known in the 50th Until then, Ischia was one of the most famous tourist destinations of Campania, known worldwide for its natural beauty and for the famous thermal waters. You even think that Garibaldi was on to treat the wounds of war. It was one of the historical stages of the Grand Tour, painters, writers and intellectuals from across Europe were spending long periods on Ischia. But the tourist economy was still as it were "home", improvised. In the mid-50s reached the final "settler" means the Milanese publisher and producer, Angelo Rizzoli door on a new form of tourism, he built the hotel-spa "Queen Isabella", built the hospital " Anna Rizzoli. This opens the way for the large tourist business and isolation of Ischia is also famous for its natural beauty, even for its great culture of hospitality that makes it one of the most important holiday in the world.