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Updated: July 15, 2025
And this to the magnificent Lord Admiral Mutio di Costanzo, Vice-Roy of Nikosia and friend to Caterina, who had received her oath of allegiance after the death of Janus so high he stood among the nobles of Cyprus Rizzo's eyes fairly gleamed as he gloated over it this order commanding him to yield up the splendid city of Nikosia, with his fortress of Costanza and the fleets of the island, to those who should present this parchment with the little signature of Caterina Regina.
Surely an historical incident such as this is of more value than all the hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or of San Costanzo, upon which the imagination of the islanders has been fed for generations.
We find ourselves being driven rapidly up the excellent winding road constructed only a quarter of a century ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and prickly pear, until we gain the saddle of the island-mountain, where stands the small capital perched upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the north, and to the south the endless expanse of the unruffled Tyrrhene.
"You," he answered vehemently, "you, Lazzaro Biancomonte of Biancomonte, whose father Costanzo of Pesaro stripped of his domains. The matters in those papers mean the ruin of the Lord of Pesaro. We are all but ripe to strike at him from Rome and when we strike he shall be so disfigured by the blow that all Italy shall hold its sides to laugh at the sorry figure he will cut.
It is the Madonna of Carmel who disputes with San Costanzo, the Saint of the mother-church below, the spiritual dominion of Capri. If he is the "Protector" of the island, she is its "Protectress." The older and graver sort indeed are faithful to their bishop-saint, and the loyalty of a vinedresser in the piazza remains unshaken even by the splendour of the procession.
Capri is a perfect treasure-house of Roman remains, and though in later remains the island is far poorer, the ruins of mediæval castles crown the heights of Castiglione and Anacapri, and the mother church of San Costanzo with its central dome supported on marble shafts from the ruins hard by is an early specimen of Sicilian or Southern Italian architecture.
Mutio di Costanzo, Admiral of Cyprus and Vice-Roy of Nikosia, Lord of the city and fortress of Costanza, one of a long line of knights, was a gentleman of honor devoted to the Crown and a loyal friend to the Queen: he held the confidence of the people and deserved it well.
And so this winter feast of the fishermen is a poor little thing beside our festa of San Costanzo in the May-time.
Did the old road from Stabiae Athene temple go round the promontory and continue as far as Ierate along the southern slope of San Costanzo hill? No temple of this magnificence can have stood here, but only a Roman villa one of the many pleasure-houses which dotted these shores under the Empire. So much for myself.
To sum up: Strabo is wrong in saying that the temple of Athene stood on the summit of Mount San Costanzo; I was wrong in thinking that this temple lay at Ierate; Peutinger's Chart is wrong in figuring the structure on the south side of the Sorrentine peninsula; Beloch is wrong in identifying the skopelos trikoruphos of Eratosthenes with Mount San Costanzo; Eratosthenes is wrong in locating his rock at the boundary between the two gulfs.
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