Isola la Gaiola, Naples

Gaiola is a small offshore island with a villa, set within Naples’s underwater park opposite Posillipo. It belongs to the volcanic Campanian Archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea and lies close enough to the mainland to be reached by swimming. Its story reaches back to antiquity: the island was once called Euplea and held a Roman temple devoted to Venus.

The coast around Posillipo is marked by cavities, and one documented explanation connects the island’s name with the Latin word for a small cave, carried into local speech. Ruins from Roman factories covered the island in the seventeenth century, and later it served as a defensive battery for the Gulf. An unusual link to the mainland was added by maritime engineer Nelson Foley, who built a single-person cable chair between the island and shore.

As local legend has it, Gaiola is cursed; that reputation grew from deaths, suicides, financial ruin, and other disasters associated with several owners. Today, the island is public property within a protected marine reserve, with scientific work carried out through the Gaiola study centre. The villa and the surrounding sea carry the same striking tension: beauty above, archaeological and natural life below.