Temple
Templum Minervae
Heiligtum an der Punta della Campanella
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Templum Minervae, the temple of Minerva, crowned the Punta della Campanella, the cape at the tip of the Sorrento peninsula, where every ship bound for the bay had to pass. The Greek geographer Strabo credits Odysseus himself with founding this sanctuary of Athena, and sailors poured out wine to win the goddess's favour in the sometimes rough strait towards Capri. The map gives it a small house, yet it is Sorrento, not the temple, that sits at the point of the cape, so the two may have swapped places in copying. Directly across the sea, on the African coast, a temple of Venus stands on a matching headland.