The history

In Ravello in Via S. Giovanni del Toro is located “Villa Fraulo” patrician residence with behind more than five centuries of history, the master of the house, Pantaleon Fraulo, and his family had the pleasure and honor of being neighbors Prince’s companion, a fascinating character whose actions, along with those of other illustrious men, allowed to Ravello to become known in Italy and around the world.

The Prince and elegant companion was a nobleman of great genius who knew how to interpret the present with a modern and innovative. Comrade Joseph, was born in Corigliano Calabro November 24, 1875, in one of his trips he visited the Amalfi coast which he fell in love.

Decided to move to Ravello, where he lived from 1919 until his death on May 9, 1951. He was Honorary Superintendent of Antiquities Medieval Ravello and Commissioner Prefittizio since May 1931 to September 1933, Company Care, living and tourism.

This extraordinary character He managed to turn his love of Ravello in concrete works for his people. It entertained with memorable characters and a variety discretion illustrious men in the history of Italy, among many others, Benito Mussolini, who overlooking the beautiful balcony of Casa Ravello companion called “the beautiful”. A sincere friendship bound, then, Comrade Prince Umberto of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont young, who went often and without notice, in Ravello, visiting elderly friend, who offered him his house during the tragic days of 1944 .

The love of Ravello led him to concern for problems of infrastructure (the system of electric light along the road Castiglione-Minor, the cable car between Castiglione and Ravello, Amalfi-a possible rail link Gragnano), of civilized development and progress tourist Ravello. Its valid and incomiabile interest led him to obtaining the loan for the construction of civic Ravello.

The validity of the design of the Prince and his intellectual acumen convinced the Minister of Finance Giuseppe Volpi, to provide the ultimate solution to the aqueduct. The Minister, hosted by Baron Companion, had been able to see for themselves “the intense fascination of beauty and silence” of Ravello, the “multitudes of foreigners thirsty for peace, light and blue” and a number of grave hardships of everyday life.
Ravello could finally see the realization of the long cherished dream and get what they needed for a real economic revival and moral.

The action of the Prince companion did not just Ravello. To remember his concern for the establishment of the Gymnasium in 1932 to Amalfi where he was declared Honorary Citizen. Not to forget this historic and great man, indeed the right to bestow praise and recognition for his deeds, as well as the memory and onorane, the Germans Di Lieto, the owners of the “Villa fraulo” wanted to dedicate the most beautiful room.