Protagonist of photographs and works by local artists, the Church of Santa Maria Assunta is located in the heart of the town of Positano, exhibiting its majestic majolica dome that further embellishes the landscape.

The history of the Church is linked to that of the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria, founded in the second half of the century. X. Later the abbey was abandoned, and passed into the hands of several abbend knight commander, until the “new” at the hands of the last abbot in 1777 that gave rise to various works, leading the Church to become visible today.

Its interiors, rich in opulent gold ornaments, contain precious paintings and statues, among which the reliquary bust of San Vito, patron saint of the city and the Byzantine icon of the Virgin, set in the middle of the main altar. The bust, from the Neapolitan school, dates back to the 16th century, and is one of the most valuable works on the Amalfi Coast, with attention to details and probably built on a real model.

The bell tower of the Chiesa Madre, located on the same parvis, was instead rebuilt in 1707 by an unknown Capuchin friar, on it is a plaque that recalls Flavio Gioia and a medieval bassorielevo depicting the pistrice, marine monster symbol of the town of Positano.

And it is just passing behind the bell tower that literally opens up a new world: crossing the entrance to a museum that has all the flavor of a journey back in time. First we come across an austere medieval crypt, which seems to have been the place where liturgical activities took place before the construction of the Church and later became a cemetery (as demonstrated by the drafts along the entire apsidal perimeter).

Continuing to “dig” in the history of Positano, we find ourselves in front of a fascinating Villa Romana, a beauty buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 1979. Its existence was already known since the early years of the ‘900, when a butcher, in digging a tunnel to store his meat, came across colors and objects that had all the flavor of another era.
Today this wonder is visible and can be visited, thanks to numerous and continuous restoration and research works that have put together the pieces of its history.

It is a classic Villa Marittima from the Roman period, of the same vein of the others located along the Amalfi Coast and the major islands, a real status of the most well-to-do sanatorium classes.

This, in particular, seems to belong to a freedman of the emperor Claudius: Posides Claudi Caesaris, from which the name of the town derives.

What emerged during the excavations left the archaeological breathless, confirming the importance of the site every day: the frescoes of the domus are almost completely intact, the rare and precious colors, the depictions rendered in perspective and treated in the smallest details.

Under the mantle of lapilli were found ancient columns, further fragments of fresco and a truly surprising number of everyday objects, until the arrival “on the ground” that brought to light the mosaic floor of the domus.

At the end of the excavation and restoration work, each object has found the right place within the path, a path that shows how literary overlapping of historical periods and cultures, in a journey that, “digging” in time, leads at the most beautiful and ancient corner of Positano.