Deepening :

Sperlonga: beauty through the time

Sperlonga was known to celebrities since the ancient Roman times. Local legends dispute to Gaeta and Formia the legendary location where hero of ancient Greece, Ulysses, launched the anchor here to rest and take on much-needed drinking water for his crew after a long journey through the Mediterranean described in Homer’s Odyssey.

During the Roman Empire age, the area became also a beloved holiday destination, particularly with Emperor Tiberius. The name Sperlonga derives from the Latin ‘speluncae’ for the natural caves that are typical of this stretch of coastline.

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In fact, Sperlonga was also chosen and much-loved by prominent Roman rulers who built here their escape luxury villas where to take refuge from the heavy duty of ruling the huge Roman empire. One of the village large beaches know as Tiberius Grotto beach is rewarded with the extraordinary remains of what two millennia ago’ was an eccentric multi-storey luxury villa sprawling from the shore up to the rocky hillside.

The cavern lays at the end of the long beach, in part included in the structures of the villa which is toady partly submerged along the shore. The remains are of extraordinary importance and were hidden until 1957, when they were uncovered by a crew during road works.

Excavations suggest that Tiberius ancient villa’s ruins once were surrounded by a residential area for aristocrats including military barracks, a market and also a small port.

Nevertheless, much alike to the other territories of South Pontino with the exception of Gaeta, Sperlonga's brief period as a leisure resort for Roman noblemen was followed by centuries of isolation and decay following the Roman empire’s decline. The site of Tiberius' villa was occupied by monks for several centuries, until they moved to the greater security of the stony promontory 180 feet above sea level.

Several corsairs’ watchtowers remain along the coast as evidence of a ancient and prolonged threat of invasion by sea. The Saracens, the Normans, the Greeks, the Byzantines, The French and the Spanish and other land invaders plundered Sperlonga repeatedly between the 6th and 18th centuries.

Part of the Roman dukedom in the 8th century , Sperlonga was later included in the possessions od Gaeta’s duchy when this latter reached its independence as a well respected naval force in the mediaeval Mediterranean history.

The remains of the 10th century castle built in massive squared stones similar to the Byzantine walls of Gaeta, can still be observed from the bridge leading to Piazza della Republica.

The main gate that from Torre Truglia’s headland leads out towards Terracina on the Via Flacca still shows a decorative shield similar to the one placed on the mediaeval gates in the higher part of the village.