Sant’Agata sui due golfi
S. Agata sui due golfi is a small fraction of Massa Lubrense.
Etruschi and Greeks were the first inhabitants of this territory, like testified by the immense necropolis on the north side of the locality called Desert, where an ancient monastery rises, from whose top the evocative sight of the two gulfs can be admired. Two city nucleis distinguish the ancient country houses of Pedara and Sant’Agata, constituting the current Sant’Agata on the two Gulfs that takes the name from a small church not more existing, dedicated to the Vergine.
Sant’ Agate, for its central position between the peninsula sorrentina and the coastal amalfitana (9 km from Sorrento and 10 from Positano), offers several possibility of nice trips.
The church of S. Agate
Founded from the Casafestina family in 1745 it has the structure of a Latin cross, dedicated to S. Maria of Thanks. The church, beyond the chapel in which the beautiful statue of Sant’Agata is conserved, guards the precious altar, artistic masterpiece in marble tarsia and nacre realized from Dionisio Lazzari, pertaining to a famous family of Florentine craftsmen of the Renaissance that, at the beginning of the ‘600, moved to Naples where realized numerous works in marble and inlays of precious stones. The altar of the church of Saint Maria of Thanks of Sant’Agata, commissioned from the Girolomini fathers of Naples to Dionisio Lazzari in 1654 for the church of Saint Filippo Black, was sold in 1845 to withstanding of the parish, monsignor Giovanni Casola Battista.
Moreover it is possible to admire numerous paintings of the 16th century tracing in some elements of the local landscape, as in Madonna of Thanks of Giovanni Antonino D’Amato the Young, in which it is possible to notice the panorama between Mass and the island of Capri.
The monastery of the desert.
In the end of a pleasant climb, it is found a monastery from which a splendid panorama can be admired.
Obligatory step of the “Gran tour, it still today attracts various visitors searching a wonderful panorama on the two gulfs. The building, known as the monastery of the desert, was constructed from the Carmelitani in the 1679 beside the chapel of mount Calvary, it passed to the order of the fathers Greys of Ludovico from Casoria in 1867. Towards the end of the 20th century it was acquired by the Benedictine nuns of S. Paul that lived there after leaving their monastery in Sorrento. A necropolis is found in Vadabillo locality, formed of sarcophagis of tuff datable VII and Vi century B.C.
Paths
For the lovers of the nature it is necessary to visit these splendid places that the nature has rendered magical because they link sea and mountain with the splendid sight of the Lattari Mounts and the gulfs of Naples and Salerno. Along the distances some majolicas are dislocated bringing the indications to follow. The zone is characterized by the presence of numerous terraces with olive groves and white “murecine” (little dry walls), the trellis roofs that cover the citrus groves, the buildings in tuff with the classics arch and the external steps.