Regarding the origins of the city, the most conformed hypothesis is that it was founded around the 8th century b.C by the habitants of the nearby Pithekoussai (Ischia) coming from the Euboea cities of Chalcis and Eretria. In a very short time, it became a flourishing and powerful city, and it extended its influence on the phlegraean and Parthenopean gulf.
It history, as we said, with the fall in the hands of people from Campania (421 b.C), merges with the Dicearchia one. Then, when Puteoli became Rome’s main port, it rapidly fell in a short time and it was remembered only for the presence of the Cave of the Sybil, which is nowadays the Phlegraean FieldsArcheological Park. This monument brought to light in 1932 and dug into the tuff, fascinates for its mysterious atmosphere which it envelops it. Virigil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid, considered that here we need to look for the seat of the legendary, terrible priestess of Apollo. But, in the opinion of some researchers, it could also be a rare example of funeral architecture of Crete – Mycenae inspiration. A corridor (dromos) of more than 130 meters long (2,40 meters large and 5 meters high), with a perfect trapezoidal cutting illuminated by six lateral openings, leads to an arched space in which there is another one more hidden. Other recent studies attribute to the structure a defensive function of the underlying port area. On the right, there is the Crypta Romana; on the left the via Sacra, full of ancient Greek, Roman and medieval finds which frame the view on the islands of Ischia and Procida. On this way you can meet the Temple of Jupiter, built on the highest point of the acropolis: there is only the layout platform remaining of the Greek temple (5th century b.C). On the 5th century, it has been transformed into a christian basilica, of which only visible traces and the original baptistery are remaining. On the lower terrace there is the Temple of Apollo, which the legendary construction is attributed to the mythical Daedalus, who landed there after the fabulous flight from Crete, and from which there is few traces remaining in the basement, (this one also has been adapted to the Christian church in the 5th century).
You walk along Lake Fusaro, where Casina Vanvitelliana reflects. It is a real jewel of the eighteenth century architecture, wanted by Ferdinand IV of Bourbon as a royal hunting lodge and as a love token for his second morganatic wife Lucia Migliaccio, duchess of Floridia. Carlo Vanvitelli projected it in 1782 with a lightness which is multiplied thanks to the reflecting effect of the lake basin, which was the mythical marsh of Acherusia. It highlights a very refined architectonic concept, so as closely to resemble to an aquatic floating plant. It was sacked during the riots of 1799 and damaged by the earthquakes, and it was restored in 1991. A famous painting of Hackert (kept at the museum of Capodimonte) represents it in its spectacular suggestion of time. It also hosted Metternich and the Russian tsar, Mozart, Rossini and Victor Emmanuel III.
