Gulf of Policastro

The Gulf of Policastro lies along the Tyrrhenian shores of southern Campania and Basilicata. Its name comes from Policastro Bussentino, the settlement on its northwestern side. The town's castle occupied a position from which the gulf and adjoining inland country could be watched through a system of towers, giving the coastal landscape a military as well as a maritime importance.

Surviving monuments and destruction records provide specific landmarks for the later medieval and early modern gulf. Policastro retains medieval walls built upon older defences, and its cathedral has a portal dated 1455. In 1542 Turkish attackers took and destroyed the town. Treccani links its subsequent decline with the progressive marshing of the nearby plain. These events concern one coastal centre, rather than the whole gulf, but show how fortified settlements, seaborne attack and changing lowland conditions shaped life beside these waters before 1837.