Split Mountain - Gaeta

The Split Muntain is certainly one of the most evocative places in Gaeta, visited every year by tourists who are captured by the magic of the three crevices of the promontory. It is a place that embodies a real itinerary.
The Sanctuary of the SS. Trinità, built in the 11th century, is renowned throughout history because numerous popes prayed here, including Pius IX, sovereigns, bishops and saints, including Bernardino of Siena, Ignazio di Loyola, Leonardo da Porto Maurizio and San Filippo Neri.

Legend has it that San Filippo Neri lived inside the Split Mountain where there is a stone bed still known today as “The bed of San Filippo Neri”.

Along the walls of the rock, it is possible to admire the majolica panels of the stations of the Via Crucis, partially restored, dating back to 1849 and attributed to S. Bernardino da Siena, containing the verses of Metastasio.

Grotta del Turco

Obviously, the route also includes a visit to the suggestive “Grotta del Turco”, connected both to an ancient religious tradition according to which it came to light at the time of Christ’s death, when the veil of the temple in Jerusalem was torn, and to various popular beliefs . Among these, there would be the imprint of the hand of a Turkish sailor on a rock.
Along the stairway that leads into the bowels of the mountain, along the narrow crack in the rock, on the right, you can see an inscription in Latin and above it, a disturbing imprint of a translucent hand imprinted in the rock, which legend has it belonged to a Turkish sailor. The disbeliever was a non-Christian, skeptical of the sacred origin of the cracks in the mountain, but as soon as he placed his hand boldly on the rock, this, according to tradition, instantly liquefied like wax under his fingers, thus leaving the clear imprint of the hand and 5 fingers that can still be seen now. Given the natural context, it cannot be excluded that in the cave, in the Middle Ages, ships of Saracen pirates who found refuge among the crevices of this strategic promontory, ready to attack ships in transit by surprise, in order to plunder them. loads them.

Stone bed

At the end of the path there is also a stone bed, where St. Filippo Neri used to retire in meditation. In 1434 a probable earthquake caused the fall of a large boulder which got stuck inside one of the crevices of the mountain: on this a chapel was erected, from which you can enjoy a splendid view, both on the surrounding sea, that on the very high cliff of over 150 meters visible from the terrace.