CAPRI. - Island in the Gulf of Naples, with an area of 10.36 sq km, called Capreae by Virgil (Aen., VII, 735), Ovid (Met., XV, 709), Pliny (Nat. hist., III, 6, 822). The ancient town was closer to the Marina Grande than the present one. At the time of Pope Gregory I (590-604) it depended on the bishop of Sorrento. From about that time dates the only Christian inscription so far known, of a certain Geladinus sector (CIL, X, 1, 6810).
The first certain bishop is John, consecrated in the year 987 by Leo, archbishop of Amalfi, by order of Pope John XV, immune tamen a iure cathedratus (Ughelli, VII, p. 353).
It remained under the archbishop of Amalfi until 1818, the year in which the diocese was united with Sorrento.
The oldest church of C. is that of S. Costanzo (11th century), with a central plan; the Cathedral was dedicated to St. Stephen, was rebuilt in 1683, and is now a collegiate church. The monastery of St. Stephen is known from as early as the year 591, when its abbot was Savinus: it is still mentioned in the time of Gregory II (719-29). The charterhouse of S. Giacomo was erected, between 1371-74, by Count Giacomo Arcucci, secretary of Joanna I of Anjou; suppressed in 1808, it was reopened on 23 Sept. 1936, to make of it a center of religious and cultural life, by the Canons Regular Lateranensi.
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Enrico Josi