Capri Island historical timeline

Capri's history is written into its vertical layout. Prehistoric caves, Greek walls, Roman cisterns and medieval churches occupy different levels of the same limestone mass. Capri and Anacapri developed as distinct communities because the western plateau and eastern saddle were difficult to connect. Later roads and the funicular changed movement without erasing that division. Villa Jovis remains the clearest physical statement: an imperial residence organized around water storage on an isolated eastern height.

Chronology

1. Neolithic-Bronze Age People used Grotta delle Felci and other island sites long before written history. Finds from these periods established Capri as a settled landscape, not an empty Roman retreat. The cave and mapped prehistoric sites remain part of the island's protected archaeological record.
2. 8th-4th c. B.C. Greek settlement linked Capri to Neapolis and used the island's two natural habitation zones. The route now called Scala Fenicia connected the upper western plateau to the coast. Polygonal wall remains near the funicular terrace still mark the defended eastern settlement.
3. A.D. 27 Tiberius moved his court and administration to Capri and governed from the island until A.D. 37. Villa Jovis concentrated private, service and bath quarters around large cisterns. Its terraced ruins still command Monte Tiberio and the Gulf of Naples.
4. 866 Emperor Louis II transferred Capri to Amalfi after centuries within the orbit of Naples. Eastern Mediterranean connections became visible in the island's medieval art and architecture. Churches and surviving settlement layers still place Capri within that wider Tyrrhenian network.
5. 1371-1374 Giacomo Arcucci founded and built the Certosa di San Giacomo under Angevin rule. Church, cloisters, service spaces and water systems created the island's largest medieval complex. It now houses the archaeological museum and cultural exhibitions.
6. 1496 King Frederick IV granted legal and administrative parity to Capri and Anacapri. The decision formalized a division already imposed by terrain. The island still has two municipalities, separate civic centres and distinct public calendars.
7. 1535-1553 Ottoman corsair attacks struck the island, burning Castello Barbarossa in 1535 and damaging the Certosa in 1553. Communities strengthened defensive positions and repaired the monastery. The castle ruins and the Certosa's later fabric preserve the consequences.
8. 1806-1813 French and British forces exchanged control of Capri during the Napoleonic wars. British occupation brought intensive fortification, and French troops retook the island by scaling the western cliffs in 1808. West-coast military remains still make that defensive geography legible.
9. 1826 August Kopisch published his account of the Blue Grotto after visiting it that year. The cave became a focus of modern European interest, helping shift Capri from strategic island to cultural destination. Its controlled rowing-boat entry still shapes the visit.
10. 1895 Axel Munthe acquired the Anacapri site where he developed Villa San Michele with local builders. The house blended Caprese construction with an imagined Roman domus. Its museum, garden and foundation remain one of Anacapri's principal cultural institutions.
11. 1905 The funicular opened to the public between Marina Grande and central Capri. It replaced a steep transfer with a direct public link and fixed the harbour-to-town axis used by most arrivals today.
12. 2024 The national archaeological museum opened within the Certosa di San Giacomo. Objects formerly dispersed through regional stores returned to an island context. The display now connects the surviving Roman sites with the administration and court established under Augustus and Tiberius.

What survived, and how

Capri preserved ancient fabric through reuse, burial and difficult access. Roman cisterns survived because later settlement still needed water storage. Walls and foundations entered newer properties, while exposed villas lost decorative material but kept their terraces and service cores. Modern archaeology has made these fragments readable without pretending that every villa survives as a complete plan.

The Certosa records a different cycle. Corsair damage was followed by seventeenth-century rebuilding and enlargement. After the Carthusians were expelled in 1808, the complex served military, custodial and cultural purposes, each leaving changes. Restoration and the 2024 museum returned public use to the buildings. Current conservation projects continue at the Certosa, Villa Jovis, Villa Damecuta and the Blue Grotto, so access can change while the work proceeds.