Capri (/ˈkæpri/ KAP-ree, US also /kəˈpriː, ˈkɑːpri/ kə-PREE, KAH-pree; Italian: [ˈkaːpri]) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Italy.

Some of the main features of the island include the Marina Piccola, the Belvedere of Tragara (a high panoramic promenade lined with villas), the limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the faraglioni), the town of Anacapri, the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), the ruins of the Imperial Roman villas, and the vistas of various towns surrounding the Island of Capri including Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, Sorrento, Nerano, and Naples.

Augustus developed Capri; he built temples, villas, and aqueducts and planted gardens so he could enjoy his private paradise.

[citation needed] After the end of the Western Roman Empire, Capri returned to the status of a dominion of Naples, and suffered various attacks and ravages by pirates.

The pirate raids reached their peak during the reign of Charles V: the famous Turkish admirals Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha and Turgut Reis captured the island for the Ottoman Empire, in 1535 and 1553, respectively.

[citation needed] The first recorded tourist to visit the island was French antiques dealer Jean-Jacques Bouchard in the 17th century.

The British ousted the French in the following May, after which Capri was turned into a powerful naval base (a "Second Gibraltar"), but the building program caused heavy damage to the archaeological sites.

His work was continued by his son, author and engineer Edwin Cerio, who wrote several books on life in Capri in the 20th century.

Norman Douglas, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Christian Wilhelm Allers, Emil von Behring, Curzio Malaparte, Axel Munthe, Louis Coatalen and Maxim Gorky are all reported to have owned a villa there, or to have stayed there for more than three months.

Capri, as with the Sicilian resort of Taormina, became "high on the list of places to be visited by homosexual northerners", according to Gregory Woods, chair in Gay and Lesbian Studies.

The history of Taormina was changed by the presence of Wilhelm von Gloeden, known for his homoerotic photography, whose studio from 1878 to 1931 drew many visitors to the town.

In December 1897 Oscar Wilde was planning to winter in Naples with his lover Lord Alfred Douglas; the couple made a short visit to Capri, but their presence proved too scandalous for even that liberal island ("They even denied us bread!

[12] Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, who settled in Capri and built Villa Lysis, visited von Gloeden in 1923, bringing with him his schoolboy lover/secretary.

The English artist and adventurer, John Wood Shortridge, acquired a fortino at Marina Piccola in the 1880s, (later transformed into a private villa by Dame Gracie Fields) and married a Capri girl, Carmela Esposito.

3 (July, 1999), p. 2. it is recorded that the only mention of him in a recent book, albeit partially inaccurate, occurs in James Money's Capri: Island of Pleasure (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986, p. 42).

In the story, the protagonist from Hendon, part of the borough of Barnet in London, comes to Capri on a holiday and is so enchanted by the place he gives up his job and decides to spend the rest of his life in leisure there.

[citation needed] As well as being a haven for writers and artists, Capri served as a relatively safe place for foreign gay men and lesbians to lead a more open life; a small nucleus of them were attracted to live there, overlapping to some extent with the creative types mentioned above.

Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen wrote the roman à clef Et le feu s'éteignit sur la mer (1910) about Capri and its residents in the early 20th century, causing a minor scandal.

A satirical presentation of the island's lesbian colony is made in Mackenzie's 1928 novel Extraordinary Women, inspired by the affairs of American painter Romaine Brooks (in the novel, under the pseudonym of Olimpia Leigh).

Graham Greene had a house in the town of Anacapri, the upper portion of the island, where he lived with his lover Catherine Walston.

The native fauna on the island include quails, robins, peregrine falcons, woodcocks, blackbirds, geckos, red goldfish, conger eels, sargos, groupers, mullets, and the blue lizard of the Faraglioni.

[citation needed] The ferry companies operating routes to Capri are SNAV, NLG, Positano Jet, Alilauro, Captain Morgan and Caremar in 2023.