An unhappy love, son of the myth that plays so much in the culture of this ancient land, also sung by Virgil.
He was taken by a great passion for the beautiful sea nymph Kamaratòn, the helmsman of Aeneas' fleet, Palinuro. He had been struck by her observing her in the moonlit sea and had proposed to her to marry him. But she had been adamant in rejecting him, so as to cause the Trojan great pain. Thus, in the night narrated in the V book of the "Aeneid", Palinuro asked the god Sleep to soothe his love pains and fell into the sea, drowning. Struck like her son Aeneas by the death of the helmsman, Aphrodite wanted to avenge him, and transformed Kamaratòn into a rock, forced for eternity to look at the sea in which Palinuro is also reflected, the rocky promontory from which it is divided by a long sandy strip. And on the rock of Kamaratòn, Camerota arose in the 6th century BC, by the Phocaeans who had also settled in Elea. Out of the myth, the name Camerota could always derive from the Greek, with a reference to the vaults of the numerous caves spread throughout its territory.
The main center of the Cilento municipality is on a 323 m high hill, overlooking a luxuriant expanse of olive groves that reaches the sea. In the Middle Ages, the village was fortified with large walls, a tower over sixteen meters high and a castle, due to the continuous attacks by the Saracens, who also came to occupy the fortress between 868 and 915. But the worst of the attacks it occurred in 1552, when Dragut's army put Camerota to fire and sword, also destroying its castle. It was rebuilt by Don Placido de Sangro, from one of the families that over the centuries had Camerota among their fiefdoms. In that period the castle passed from a baronial residence to a marquis residence and watchtowers were also built.
Marquises of Camerota were various prominent families in the kingdom of Naples in various eras: from the Sanseverinos to the de Sangros, from the Marcheses to the Orsinis. Just one of the Marquis, Paolo, in 1647 thought of restoring the jus primae noctis. The response of the inhabitants of the village was very violent: the nobleman was captured, killed and torn to pieces. In that same year, the village of Licusati, which is still a fraction of it, was merged into Camerota.
The Camerota hills still preserve part of the walls, with Porta di Susa, one of the three ancient entrances. With the moat and important remains of the castle, recently subjected to a careful restoration. Characteristics of Camerota are the workshops of the clay artisans, who still use the foot-operated lathe and even more ancient processing techniques. The Museum of Peasant Civilization and Craftsmanship also pays homage to their craftsmanship.
The fractions
The profusion of mastic spots has given its name to Lentiscosa, the hamlet immersed in a landscape of great naturalistic value which preserves precious evidence of the presence of the Basilian monks since the 8th century. Of their monastery there are some ruins outside the village. Splendid frescoes, inspired by oriental iconography, adorn the chapel of Santa Maria ad martyres, a true masterpiece of Byzantine art. Identified by the dome of colored majolica and an unusual Moorish architecture is the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, to visit as well as the panoramic seventeenth-century sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, with a relic of the Saint and a statue of the Neapolitan school also from the seventeenth century.
Many ancient olive trees of the prized Pisciottana variety, from which DOP oil is extracted. In Licusati, the excellent agriculture of the area is the protagonist. In the village, which exhibits noble palaces and the beautiful church of San Marco, it is possible to take an unusual itinerary among mills from different eras, almost all of which are working: from the oldest of the seventeenth century to the nineteenth-century water-operated one, up to the most modern.
More populous than the hilly Camerota is the fraction of Marina di Camerota, famous for its splendid beaches and bays that alternate in the fascinating rocky embroidery of the Cilento coast, enhanced with its sea by the Costa degli Infreschi and Masseta Marine Protected Area. The three towers of Poggio, Isola and Zancale have protected the seaside village over the centuries. The port lies in a cove in the centre of the town, a short distance from which is the eighteenth-century castle, built at the behest of the last feudatory Orazio Marchese as a summer residence, acquired in the past years by the Municipality.
