"‘N coppa Santu Nicola" ("On Saint Nicolas"). This is how Ischia inhabitants have defined their mountain for centuries.
An incomprehensible geographical indication to whoever is not from the island. It cannot be found on topographic maps, starting with the oldest one by Mario Cartaro from 1588. Who, instead, made official the name with which the hill dominating the other ones would become famous to foreigners: Epomeo.
The green monument which the forces of nature have modeled over the millenia, a majestic synthesis of the complex genesis of the island, considered a paradise by the geologists. The destination of a unique experience that, being in Ischia, cannot be denied at least once in a lifetime.
"'N coppa", "on”. It underlines the value of the hill that prepares to get to the summit, for the encounter with the island which always surprises. An uneven and demanding path, complicated by the darkness, in order to be at the top when the light of dawn appears in the night sky. The most coveted view ever, in the clear days, especially in summer. They are also the favorite ones by foreign travelers, who since the seventeenth century, more and more numerous, climbed on a mule the paths that open on every side of the large cone of rock.
The Epomeo is not a mount, it is not a volcano. It is both. And not only. Its conformation is so peculiar that it has was necessary to coin the definition of volcano-tectonic horst. A gigantic resurgent clod of volcanic materials: the tuffs remained for thousands of years in a caldera in the centre of the island, in contact with boiling mineral waters, which gave them the characteristic green colour, before an intrusion of magma from the depths of the earth lifted them upwards, starting a new process of transformation of the island. This is how the massif of Epomeo was born and raised. For the myth, it represents the head of the restless giant Tiphon.
In the nocturnal ascent with torches, rigorously on foot now that the driveway from Fontana has reduced the length of the path to the top, it is difficult to distinguish the green of the tuff which during the day is in perfect harmony with the dense vegetation surrounding the sides of the mountain. Innumerable trunks accompany the path between gorges, cliffs, plateaus and huge rocks fallen from above. Forests of chestnuts trees and willows, which offered the necessary for the cultivation of the vine - widely practiced a little further down - already to the inhabitants of the hamlets of Noia and Toccaneto, arose on the slopes of the mountain in the 3rd century BC. On the other hand, the mountain was frequented also by the oldest inhabitants of the island. Attracted not only by the view on the summit, but above all for the possibility of seeing any boat sailing the sea from the land of Circe to the one of the Sirens.The precious observatory of the Epomeo has never betrayed over the centuries. The wood depository on Monte della Guardia was always well stocked to light the fires that sounded the alarm of an imminent danger. Useful so that the islanders could leave the coastal hamlets, to take refuge in the numerous caves and stone houses, purposely dug into the rock in the most inaccessible and protected points of the mountain.
The fires on the Epomeo were visible up to Castel Sant’Elmo. Strategic signals for the military control of the Gulf and of Naples. And precisely in the narration of an episode of the conflict between Angevins and Aragonese which took place on the mountain, Giovanni Pontano revealed in his “De bello neapolitano” in 1459 the existence of a small church dedicated to Saint Nicolas. Built in the tuff of the crest, it is one of the oldest examples of rock architecture in the South, embellished with a marble bas-relief of the Saint at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is the first visit to do, after having reached the top, welcomed by the coveted coolness of the altitude, after having traversed the last stretch of the hill in a narrow passage between the rocks, a worthy conclusion of the Sentiero del Tufo verde (Green Tuff Trail).
THE HERMITS
Next to the church, in the small monastic cells created in the stone, a story of contemplation is told, written by men who chose to retire in solitude and prayer. Some islanders, especially foreigners, mostly Germans. Like Joseph d’Argouth, the valorous governor of Ischia Castle under Charles III of Bourbon who, considered himself having received a miracle from Saint Nicolas during a military operation on the Epomeo, decided to become a Franciscan and spend the rest of his life on the hermitage, where he dug other cells, embellished the church and bought lands to ensure the subsistence of the small friar communities, who cultivated the vegetable garden and raised few goats.
D’Arguth, like the hermits who followed his example until eighty years ago, was a welcoming guest of the foreigners, who never neglected the hill to Epomeo. The accurate and passionate reports of the excursion, thanks to letters, diaries and drawings of nobles and intellectuals, reached every corner of Europe, confirming Ischia one of the stops of the classic grand tour in Italy.
After the hours spent on then back of a mule, the hermits offered to their guests the products from the garden, goat cheeses, wine and fresh water from the cistern. There was also seasonal fruits, frozen with the Epomeo snow collected in winter by the men selling the snow. It was then transferred to the deep pits dug in the wood of the Falanga, along the slopes of the mount, covered by leaves and buried, and it was kept until summer, in order to be sold in the villages of the island.
BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY
After having spent the night under the starry sky, the short wait for dawn has always been spent on the bare stone from which you can have the best view. Fog is the enemy, but on clear days the show doesn’t disappoint the wait. A delicate brightness is insinuated into the obscurity and slowly silvers the surface of the sea, differentiating it more and more from the dark shapes of the other islands, from the Ponza ones to Capri, and from the continental coast, to the Mountains of the Apennines. While the day light, always more powerful, defines the contours of the island all around the summit. Minutes of exclusive beauty. Between day and night, sky and earth, moon and sun. To say it like the painter Elisabeth Luise Vigée-Lebrun: “Poetry must have been born here!” “On Saint Nicolas”
