Sapri is a town and ''

comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

'' in the

province of Salerno The province of Salerno () is a province in the Campania region of Italy. It has 1,054,766 inhabitants as of 2025. Geography The largest towns in the province are: Salerno, the capital, which has a population of 131,950; Cava de' Tirreni, Bat ...

in the

Campania Campania is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy located in Southern Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islan ...

region of south-western

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It is one of the southernmost towns of the region of

Cilento Cilento () is an Italian mountain range (part of the Lucan Apennines), which gives its name to a geographical region of Campania in the central and southern part of the province of Salerno. Is an important tourist area of southern Italy. ...

and its population is 6,783. Port of Sapri

History

The town of Sapri has ancient origins and is considered the heart of the Gulf of Policastro. Its origins can be traced back to the times of

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

, when it was founded by ancient

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

of Sybaris, under the name of " Scidrus" (

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

: Σκίδρος). During the Roman era, the bay and its hinterland were highly esteemed.

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

referred to it as ''parva gemma maris inferi'' ("a small gem of the southern sea"). To this day, there are remains of Roman buildings near La Specola, along the road leading to Vibonati. From 1811 to 1860, Sapri was part of the circondario of Vibonati, which belonged to the District of Sala in the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by popula ...

. In June–July 1857 the republican revolutionary Carlo Pisacane led the Sapri expedition here. Pisacane and about 300 of his companions were killed in the suppression of the expedition.

Geography

The town is a port on

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (, ; or ) , , , , is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenians, Tyrrhenian people identified with the Etruscans of Italy. Geography The sea is bounded by the islands of C ...

, located in the southern part of

, close to the border with Basilicata. The town is 10 km from Maratea, 8 km from Policastro Bussentino and almost 100 km from Salerno.

Notable people

* Angelo Accardi, born in Sapri, Italian artist

Twin towns

* Ripatransone, Italy

References

External links