Why go
The island's modern identity developed through people who studied, wrote about and lived on Capri. Ignazio and Edwin Cerio connect science with civic and literary life, while Lenin's visit to Maxim Gorky links the area near the Gardens of Augustus with a very different political history.
The full story
French forces occupied Capri in January 1806. British troops displaced them that May and developed a naval base, with construction damaging archaeological remains. The French returned in 1808; in 1815, after the Napoleonic period, Capri passed back to the Bourbon rulers of Naples. Strategic use of the island thus left consequences for its ancient heritage. Later in the nineteenth century, Ignazio Cerio studied and catalogued Capri's plants and animals. His son Edwin combined engineering and writing with public life, serving as mayor from 1920 to 1923. Their work belongs to the island's intellectual history as much as its social history. Capri also drew an international community of writers and artists. In 1908, Lenin visited the Russian author Maxim Gorky near the Gardens of Augustus. Giacomo Manzù's monument, erected in 1970 for Lenin's centenary, commemorated that connection. The episode places revolutionary politics beside the island's better-known history as a resort.