This basilica was built around the 10th century in honor of Saint Anthony,
patron saint of navigators and of the city of Sorrento.
He was born in Campagna, a town near Salerno,
came to Sorrento and here died on 15 February 471. The crypt holds the
tomb of Saint Anthony, where thousands of votive offerings have been made by
sailors. On the right side of the Church one can admire a splendid portal of
the 11th century with an architrave supported by Corinthian capitals of the
Roman era. On the inside of the Church are valuable paintings of Giovanni
Bernardo Lama and the representation of the siege of Sorrento
in 1648, a splendid painting by Giacomo Del Po. Even the Vestry of the Church
contains two precious treasures: the fragments of an antique and elaborated
majorica pavement and a beautiful Neapolitan Christmas crib of the 17th
century, with statues made by the most famous sculptors of the school
of Sammartino. The clothes of the
shepherds are made of precious fabrics enriched by valuable laces. In the lobby
of the Church two whale ribs are posted as a memento of the most famous miracle
attributed to the patron Saint of Sorrento.
It is narrated, in fact, that a whale had swallowed a child and that the Saint
liberated the young boy drawing him safe and sound from the mouth of the whale.
As testimony of this wonderful miracle, the people of Sorrento
placed these two whale bones at the entrance of the Basilica in honor of the
Saint.
Sorrento Cathedral
Built around the 11th century, Sorrento Cathedral houses some marvelous
frescoes by Neapolitan painters. There is a marble portal, built around 1474,
in Renaissance style surmounted by the Aragonese escutcheon. The church houses
an archbishop throne in fine marble built around 1573, and a wooden marquetry
work of Sorrentine craftsmen and of the Neapolintan school of the 1700s. The
triple-tiered bell tower rests on an archway into which three classical columns
and a number of other fragments have been set. The bell tower is home to an
ancient ceramic clock.