Sorrento historical timeline

The site was settled before the Romans — the name Surrentum is pre-Latin — and by the first century BC it was a resort for wealthy Romans, who built cliff villas along the coast. Remains of one survive at Capo di Sorrento, where a collapsed sea cave forms a natural pool known as the Bagni della Regina Giovanna.

After Rome, Sorrento held out as a small autonomous duchy under nominal Byzantine authority, in constant rivalry with Amalfi over the mountains. The coast was raided repeatedly from the sea, and in 1558 a Turkish force sacked the town and carried off a large part of the population. The walls that ring the centre were rebuilt afterwards and parts still stand.

The town’s modern identity dates from the eighteenth century, when the Grand Tour made the Bay of Naples a fixed stop. Sorrento took the quieter end of that traffic: Goethe, Byron, Dickens, Nietzsche and Ibsen all stayed, and Ibsen worked on Peer Gynt here. The hotels built along the cliff edge for that trade are mostly still hotels.

Torquato Tasso, the poet, was born in Sorrento in 1544, and the main square carries his name.