ISOTUR

Ponza history is still present in the island culture and tradition.
After the prehistoric man, who came from Circeo looking for Palmarola obsidian, there were the Phoenicians, who used the Pontine islands as stopping place during their journeys, the Greeks, the Volsci, and finally the Romans, who brought to the island the best expressions of their architecture with villas and technical structures as aqueducts and a dam. Years later the Benedictine monks founded a monastery in Santa Maria and in Zannone, but between the 13th and the 15th century they were obliged to abandon the islands because of the Saracen raids and the politic events between Angiò and Aragons, between papacy and empire, that diverted every political and military attention from the island. Therefore, they were left unprotected, exposed to sackings and in very difficult life conditions.
Afterwards, Charles III Bourbon got the Pontine islands as a gift from his mother, was enthusiastic about them, and decided to colonise and repopulate them. So he gave the farmers and fishermen of Ischia and Procida the opportunity to move, and offered them the land, houses, seeds, tools, money and tax exemption; he modernised the port and built the first modern inhabited place, that is the present Ponza Port. His work was improved by his son, Ferdinand IV, who began the islands colonisation. Some years later the Vesuvius eruption destroyed nearly the whole Torre del Greco. Therefore, in 1772, some of the families living there came to the island, and with the same advantages of the first settlers went to live in Le Forna, the second inhabited town.
In 1820 Ponza became a place of banishment. In 1857 Carlo Pisacane, with his expedition of 300 men, got hold of the island before going to Sapri.
In 1861 the islands were annexed to Italy.