Capo Vaticano is a majestic granite promontory, apparently one of the most ancient formations in the Mediterranean basin. It was also a sacred destination known allover the Magna Grecia. Two hundred meters off the cape there is a rock called “Il Mantineo” and from there a prophetess called Manto worked the oracle. Like my father writes “ Some days you have the impression that Ulysses just sailed by”. The world renowned author Giuseppe Berto purchased Capo Vaticano in 1956, and worked and lived here for long periods of time throughout the rest of his life. A relentless promoter of the beauty, the civilization and the rural architecture of Calabria, he preserved the Cape from the intrusion of modern development and speculation and from the explosion of cement buildings that during the sixties and seventies altered forever great extents of the Italian coast.

Giuseppe Berto in the garden

At the edge of Capo Vaticano’s cliff with Cocai

With Virgilio Sabel at Capo Vaticano’s lighthouse

Giuseppe Berto in the early ’70s.

With Virgilio Sabel, Harold Brodkey , Anna Berto at the beach beneath Capo Vaticano

The Night, August 1968

GB with Antonia, Il Cucinone, summer 1960

The Night in the Sixties

Giuseppe Berto in the early ’70s.