The Hermitage of St. Erasmus

Suspended in a privileged position on the Lattari Mountains, the Hermitage of Sant’Erasmo is more than just a place of worship: it is the silent guardian of the town of Corbara and a true hinge between two worlds, the Amalfi Coast and the Sarno Valley.

Testifying to the deep devotion that binds Corbara to St. Erasmus, co-patron of the town along with St. Bartholomew, the church is documented with certainty from 1581. Probably built on an earlier religious site, the structure today has simple forms, integrated into the surrounding mountain landscape.

The climb among the UNESCO-protected garden-terraces.

The Hermitage is not just an isolated building, but a visual and spiritual landmark for the entire valley. The itinerary to reach it is configured as a small cultural trekking trip, because access is via a long flight of steps that creeps into the mountainside, offering the visitor the opportunity to take a closer look at the architecture of the rural landscape. In fact, the climb winds among characteristic garden-terraces, supported by traditional dry stone walls (the “macere”). It is precisely by walking along this stretch that one understands why this hillside is part of the area protected as a UNESCO landscape, because it testifies to how man has been able to shape a steep and hostile mountain, making it habitable and productive without distorting it.

It is on these patches of land, often cultivated in the shade of vines, that local excellence is born: the Corbara cherry tomato. Here what is called “heroic agriculture” is practiced, based on the technique of aridoculture: the plants grow with very little water, concentrating flavors and nutrients that make this product a sought-after ingredient in haute cuisine. As you walk to the summit, you are surrounded by this open-air nursery, evidence of ancient farming wisdom.

The Hermitage: history and art

Upon reaching the summit, one is greeted by the simple and austere structure of the Hermitage and by an atmosphere of peace that can already be felt in the churchyard, which repays the climb. The church has a single-nave interior, essential and cozy, keeping alive its vocation as a place of secluded and silent spirituality. This quiet place is radically transformed during the patronal celebrations, becoming the stage for one of Campania’s most spectacular traditions: the Calata dell’Angelo. The event unites the sacred and the profane, with a figure dressed as an angel being lowered down a sturdy cable car that starts right from the churchyard of the Hermitage and reaches the center of the town, covering a considerable difference in height, being stopped 13 times in midair to intone the stornelli of a traditional song “A fronna” of devotion to St. Erasmo, St. Bartholomew the Apostle and Our Lady of the Rosary, protectors of the town of Corbara.

The rite has a double key. On the one hand, it evokes the divine intervention that saved co-patron Saint Bartholomew from martyrdom; on the other, it celebrates the historical memory of Corbara’s woodcutters. The cable car used for the angel, in fact, is nothing more than the symbolic evolution of the rope systems that lumberjacks used in past centuries to transport the timber cut in the mountains to the valley.

The appointment is always for the third Sunday in July. On that occasion at sunset there is the Calata dell’Angelo, followed by the courtyards of the historic center opening to visitors for Corbara and the Corbarino, a festival and tasting of Corbara cherry tomatoes.

A glimpse of infinity

The journey ends with the panorama that alone is worth the excursion. From the forecourt of the Hermitage, the gaze opens onto a very wide natural picture: on one side the entire Agro Nocerino Sarnese dominates, on the other the view sweeps over the Gulf of Naples, with the unmistakable silhouette of Vesuvius silhouetted in the background. The Hermitage of Corbara is a true natural terrace that allows you to embrace with a single glance the complex beauty of this territory, suspended between sea and mountains.