Pogerola
Pogerola is a village on the Amalfi Coast in the Campania region , Province of Salerno , Italy .
Location and dates
The place is 305 meters above sea level above the coastal town of Amalfi on a ridge that extends inland for about one kilometer. The center is the piazza in front of the church of S. Maria delle Grazie. Administratively, Pogerola belongs to the municipality of Amalfi. The patroness of the place is the Holy Marina , whose festival is celebrated on July 17th.
history
Because of its elevated position above the medieval port and trading town of Amalfi, Pogerola was probably created as a fortified bastion to protect the city, which had trade connections far into the eastern Mediterranean ( Repubblica Marinara ). The settlement is first mentioned as castrum Bigellulae in a document from 1201. The ruins of a tower and the remains of a wall indicate this character of a fortified outpost. The churches of Madonna delle Grazie and Santa Marina date from the late Middle Ages . Up until around 1800 the iron-processing small craft played an important role in Pogerola. Here the so-called chiodi pogerolesi ("Pogerola nails") were produced, coarse iron nails whose basic material (long, thin iron rods) came from the iron hammer located in the Mühltal of Amalfi to Pogerola and was processed here in small domestic businesses (forges). In addition, agriculture was the most important branch of the population, especially since the old iron hammer in the Mühltal was shut down for reasons of profitability at the beginning of the 19th century . A road laid out in the second half of the 20th century brought the place into connection with the coast and the city of Amalfi, which previously could only be reached by stairs. The consequences for the place were mixed. On the one hand, the faster traffic connection enabled greater flexibility for residents. On the other hand, Pogerola fell victim to building speculation in the 1950s, through which the originally village-like character of the place was spoiled with concrete buildings. Many of these buildings that were built at that time, including a complete hospital, were not even put into operation.
tourism
Pogerola had no stationary tourism for a long time, only a hotel since March 2014. In the summer months, tourists regularly come from a hotel located about one kilometer down the valley for flying visits to the village, where there are four simple restaurants and two bars. Hiking trails lead from Pogerola over steep stairs into the Mühltal of Amalfi and to Amalfi itself (about an hour each).
literature
- Francesco Pansa: Istoria dell'antica repubblica d'Amalfi, Napoli 1724, p. 157.
- Matteo Camera: Memorie storico-diplomatiche dell'antica città e ducato di Amalfi, vol. II, Amalfi 1881 (reprint 1999), pp. 229-30.
- Luigi Santoro: Torri e fortificazioni della costa di Amalfi. In: Franca Assante (ed.): La costa di Amalfi nel secolo XVIII, Amalfi 1988, pp. 930-31.
- Dieter Richter : Tourism and festival culture. Religious festivals on the Costiera Amalfitana between tradition and modernity. In: D. Richter (ed.): Tourism and local culture. Cultural anthropological studies on the coast of Amalfi, Bremen, 1999, pp. 121–51.
- Giuseppe Fiengo / Gianni Abbate: La torre di Pogerola e la scoperta della Chiese di S. Sebastiano. In: Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana 1993, pp. 57-88.
Fiction (setting Pogerola):
- Francis Brett Young: Black Roses. Leipzig 1929 (Roman, English).
- Marcella d'Arle: The Duchess of Amalfi. Vienna 1979 (novel, German).
- Margaret Drabble: Impressions in the Sand, in: The Sunday Times Magazine 1987 (travel essay).
