[2] San Vito de Java was the result of a process of foreign agricultural colonization organized by the state of Costa Rica.

In 1952, in the midst of the post-war socioeconomic crisis in Europe, the two brothers Vito Giulio Cesar and Ugo Sansonetti organized a group of Italian pioneers from forty different places, from Trieste to Taranto, and including a handful from Istria and Dalmatia.

This Italian immigration is a typical example of directed agricultural colonization, similar in many ways to the process in other places in Latin America.

Vito Sansonetti (1916-1999), a seaman by profession, was the founder of the colonizing company which he named Sociedad Italiana de Colonización Agrícola (SICA), (Italian Agricultural Colonisation Society), and was in charge of negotiations with the Costa Rican authorities represented by the Instituto de Tierras y Colonización (ITCO) (Institute of Land and Colonization).

His brother, lawyer Ugo Sansonetti, lived in San Vito and acted as the leader and agent of the company in the region.

At the time, the country was very interested in expanding new agricultural frontiers in order to develop and diversify the economy, as well as to attract foreign investment by means of easy bank loans and land grants.

[1] The city is located on a high plateau with very irregular topography, at an altitude of 996 metres (3,268 ft) above sea level in the foothills of the Talamanca Mountain Range.

Climatologically, it is under the influence of the south Pacific climate, meaning that it is characterized by an annual precipitation of 3050 mm,[citation needed] with rain falling on 175 days a year on average.

San Vito is affected by moisture coming from the Pacific and entering the area through the Térraba and Coto River valleys.

No other place in Costa Rica has been so strongly influenced by Italian culture, even though with the passing years it has been greatly modified by contributions from other ethnic groups: Creole, Guaymi Native Americans, Asian, and so on.

San Vito is the only place in Costa Rica (other than some small communities) in which the teaching of the Italian language is compulsory in the educational system, and promoted by the Ministerio de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education) in order to save Italian customs and traditions.

The contract signed in 1951 was a driving force which brought in both the Italian colonists and Costa Ricans from different parts of the country attracted by the economic possibilities that the area offered.

The colonists were making a decent living, the coffee trees had reached a good level of production, and there was other farming, mainly subsistence crops.