How Gaeta was built and evolved over time

Gaeta was built to be defended, and the fabric records it directly.

Its walls date to Roman times and were extended and strengthened in the fifteenth century, especially throughout the history of the Kingdom of Naples — so the enceinte is a continuous military project rather than a single period's work.

The site chose itself. Ancient Caieta sat on the slopes of the Torre di Orlando, a promontory overlooking the sea, with Monte Orlando rising between what are now Gaeta Vecchia and Serapo.

The Roman building here was residential and lavish. Caieta became one of the earliest locations of villae maritimae, and the surviving structures are their remains — the monumental villa of Lucius Marcius Philippus in the Arcella area, and the vast villa of Lucius Munatius Plancus on Monte Orlando.

The best-preserved Roman structure is a tomb. Plancus's mausoleum, built at the end of the first century BC, is still an impressive monument inside a large clearing within his villa.

And the infrastructure was maintained by emperors: Antoninus Pius restored the port given its strategic relevance, and remains of an aqueduct that supplied the town from the Conca hill survive near the villa of Hortensius.