Once again on Corso Reginna, keeping to the right we walk to via Casa Mannini, that we will take….

Shady and set apart, at the end what remains of the bulwark of S.Sebastiano…

Maiori because of her strategic position was furnished with: an outer wall called the Bulwark of S. Sebastiano, that led from the "Rocca di S.Angelo" ( the actual Collegiate) on the west to Monte Brusario on the east.
Set at intervals six circular towers, the Bastion opened onto the beach with three great doors with draw-bridges. Outside the walls, a moat where in case of necessity the river Reginna could have its course deviated…
A second line at the foot of the mountain with three cardinal towers and a series of smaller towers that girdled Ponteprimario.
Inside this belt, high up, was the stronghold of S.Nicola de Thoro Plano, extreme refuge in case of siege…
On the outlying beach, there was rigging for cargoes and ships in dry dock: "… about 200 ships and another hundred of wood in the making…(Cerasuoli)

These fortifications were destroyed by the Pisans in 1137, but the castle of S.Nicola was still used for several centuries integrated into the defence plan of the Spanish Viceroy Don Pedro De Toledo Ribeira…

Apart from the small fragment of the main Bastion ( lowered by years of treading feet from its original level) and the small tower at the crossroad of the State road for Chiunzi, all that remains in a small piece on the opposite side of the road from via Nuova Chiunzi,in via De Iusola, near the primary school…we continue to climb…

A few more steps and in the shade of a lane appears a precious wooden Crucifix: an altar in the open air for spontaneous moments of prayer… a little further ahead an older, plainer wooden Crucifix, originally placed in the adjacent Chapel of the "Vergine Addolorata" where it is said that S.Alfonso Maria De Liguori preached.

Straight ahead we reach the area called "Lazzaro", the eastern corner of Maiori, where historical research has ascertained the presence in medieval times of a Jewish colony with a synagogue…

Retracing our steps back to via Nuova Chiunzi, straight ahead to via Accola. Take via Castello and after a short walk, we find a gate with a bell…

One ring and we hear "Trasite, trasite"(please come in) and Master Crescenzo welcomes you with a smile. He is the last guardian of a once glorious castle

 

S. Nicola de Thoro Plano Castle

Erected in the IX century to defend the city from the raids of the Longobards, some would have its origins at the hands of the same barbarians ( the Prince of Benevento, Sicardo).

At the time of the Amalfitan Dukedom, together with other castles it was part of the articulated system of defence: point of observation and extreme refuge if the bulwarks of the valley were taken. After a long time of abandon, in the XV century, it was rebuilt and has arrived to us nearly intact from that time…

In the form of an irregular polygon, the perimeter measures about 550m. over a surface of about 7500mq. The walls with sloping embankments and buttresses had nine semicircular towers spaced at regular distances. Inside it was designed to hold more than " a hundred citizens"(Cerasuoli), still preserved, are warehouses, cisterns and the ruins of the ancient small church of S. Nicola from which the whole complex takes its name.

A stupendous view that takes the breath away, a birds-eye view: of the gulf, the mountain "dell'Avvocata", Ravello, Monte Sant'Angelo a Tre Pizzi… an ideal place to enjoy the sunset and to end our itinerary…

 

Coastal Towers

The number of towers in Maiori were nine, nearly all built in the second half of the XVI century, part of a defence plan designed by the Viceroy of Naples Don Pedro De Toledo, from the west in this order:

between Maiori and Minori, the tower dell'Annunziata called "Torrricella", of 1563;

at the centre of the town the Tower Revigiana, dismantled in the XIX century, to make way for the coast road;

at the end of the curve of the coast, the Tower dell'Angolo or "S.Angelo delle Formicole", today mistakenly known as the "Tower Normanna". This bulwark and the Torrione were furnished with two cannons marked with the shield of the city, in 1758 by order of the Spanish Governer they were taken to Castle S.Elmo in Naples.

Continuing : the Tower dell'Acquarullo, in the locality of Salicerchie; the Tower of S. Spirito in the locality of Badia; the Tower Lama di cane; the Tower of Capo d'Orso, now half destroyed; the Tower del Tumulo; and lastly the Torrione of Erchie, dating from 1278…

These constructions functioned mainly as look-out towers, built to have a constant contact between them, by day they signalled with flags, by night with torches; the tower that first saw danger signalled the alarm to all the others…Dante remembered this ingenious system in the Canto of the Inferno.

Tradition tells us that a formidable pirate fleet evaded the surveillance and would have certainly taken the City, if the people of Atrani who saw the danger had not signalled the people of Maiori in time, by lighting a large bon-fire on the beach of " Platamone"…
The people of Maiori from that day on said "l'Atranese songhe o'sanghe nuosto" ( the people of Atrani are our blood-brothers), and ever since then it is tradition that the two cities exchange visits of important citizens on their respective Patron Saints days…