Cap Corse (; co, Capicorsu, ; it, Capo Corso, ), a geographical area of

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

, is a long

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on a ...

located at the northern tip of the island. At the base of it is the second largest city in Corsica,

Bastia Bastia (, , , ; co, Bastìa ) is a commune in the department of Haute-Corse, Corsica, France. It is located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It also has the second-highest population of any commune on the is ...

. Cap Corse is also a

Communauté de communes A ''communauté de communes'' (, "community of communes") is a federation of municipalities (communes) in France. It forms a framework within which local tasks are carried out together. It is the least-integrated form of ''intercommunalité'' (in ...

comprising 18 communes.CC du Cap Corse (N° SIREN : 200042943)
BANATIC, accessed 7 April 2022. The area of the ''Communauté de communes'' is 305.7 km², and its population was 6,706 in 2019.Comparateur de territoire
INSEE. Retrieved 25 November 2022.

The communes

Starting on the west side and working north around the peninsula the communes are: * Olmeta-di-Capocorso * Nonza * Olcani * Ogliastro * Canari * Barrettali *

Pino Pino or Piño may refer to: People * Danny Pino (born 1974), American actor * Domenico Pino (1760–1826), Italian general of the Napoleonic Wars * Fernando Solanas (born 1936), aka "Pino" Solanas, Argentine filmmaker * Frank J. Pino (1909–200 ...

* Morsiglia *

Centuri Centuri, formerly known as Allied Leisure, was an American arcade game manufacturer. They were based in Hialeah, Florida, and were one of the top six suppliers of coin-operated arcade video game machinery in the United States during the early 198 ...

* Ersa *

Rogliano Rogliano is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It's located in the Savuto Valley. It was mostly destroyed in a violent earthquake in 1638. The town is from Cosenza. Monuments and place ...

* Tomino * Meria * Luri * Cagnano * Pietracorbara * Sisco * Brando The

canton of Cap Corse The Canton of Cap Corse (french: canton du Cap Corse, co, cantone di u Capicorsu) is an administrative division of the French department of Haute-Corse, Corsica. It was created at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2 ...

is slightly larger, and also includes the communes Farinole, Patrimonio,

San-Martino-di-Lota San-Martino-di-Lota (French form) or San Martino di Lota (Italian form; co, San Martinu di Lota), is a commune in the French department of Haute-Corse, collectivity and island of Corsica. Population See also *Communes of the Haute-Corse depa ...

and

Santa-Maria-di-Lota Santa-Maria-di-Lota is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France on the island of Corsica. Demographics Population Religion The principal religion practiced is Catholicism. History Santa-Maria-di-Lota was once called Santa Maria de ...

History

Numerous historians have termed Cap Corse "the Sacred Promontory" and have gone so far as to suppose the name came from a high concentration of early Christian settlements. This is a

folk etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...

. The term comes from the geographer

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

, who called his first and northernmost location on Corsica the ''hieron akron'' in

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

, translated by the Romans as ''sacrum promontorium''. This is not the only point of land to be so called; there were many others in the classical world, none of them Christian. The meaning is somewhat ambiguous, whether it was called that because of a temple placed there or whether as the end of the land it was sacred to the god of the sea. If the date of the ''Geography'' is taken arbitrarily to be 100 AD, and Ptolemy was working from earlier sources, a Christian association is highly unlikely. There is no evidence either that Corsica was converted earlier than the 6th century AD, or of any Christian communities in the area in Ptolemy's time, and the concentration of later Christian edifices is no greater than they are in any populated region of Corsica. Ptolemy's interpretation of promontory also is not clear. It has been taken to mean the entire Cap Corse, the Pointe du Cap Corse, or some one of the small promontories on it. Sometimes it is associated with Macinaggio, but the problem remains unsolved. There is some geographic justification for associating Ptolemy's entire tribe, the Vanacini, who are described as "more to the north", with Cap Corse, as it is a distinct geophysical environment. The Vanacini appear in a bronze tablet found in northern Corsica repeating a letter from the emperor

Vespasian Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Emp ...

to "the magistrates and senators of the Vanacini" written about 72 AD, in Ptolemy's time. The Vanacini had bought some land from Colonia Mariana, a Roman colony in the vicinity of Bastia, and complained about the borders fixed by the

procurator Procurator (with procuracy or procuratorate referring to the office itself) may refer to: * Procurator, one engaged in procuration, the action of taking care of, hence management, stewardship, agency * ''Procurator'' (Ancient Rome), the title o ...

from whom they had bought it. The emperor, on receiving the complaint, appointed another procurator to arbitrate and wrote informing the complainants. The inscription is documentary evidence of the historicity of the Vanacini.

Notes

External links

* * {{Authority control Landforms of Corsica

Corse Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and ...

Commune communities in France Intercommunalities of Haute-Corse