Cittadella del Capo

Cittadella del Capo (in Latin Civitatula Capitis) is Bonifati’s coastal hamlet: it lies 23 metres above the sea, apart from the hilltop village, and stretches along the shore beside the SS18 state road, also taking in the districts of Paneduro (Bonifati Lido), Santa Maria and Telegrafo. The place is identified with Fella (Φήλλα), a Greek colony that lived for centuries from farming and fishing and was taken in the 16th century by the Turks of Barbarossa. In recent decades Cittadella has grown with seaside tourism and become the town’s summer destination. The Capo and Fella echo in the names of the Torre del Capo, dated to the 12th century, the Palazzo del Capo and the 16th-century Torre di Fella; the destroyed Torre del Telegrafo left its name to the district. The hamlet’s churches are the parish church of San Francesco di Paola, consecrated in 1973, where the votive feast of the patron of seafarers is celebrated on the third Sunday of August, and that of San Michele Arcangelo, from 1924. Here stands Capo Bonifati station, on the Tyrrhenian line.