The island takes its name from the cavities that dot the coast of Posillipo. The Latin caveola passed through the region's dialect to become Caviola. Originally, the small island was known as Euplea, protector of safe navigation, and was the site of a small temple. The island is very close to the coast, reachable with a few strokes of swimming. It is assumed that originally it was nothing more than an extension of the promontory opposite and was artificially separated only at a later time at the behest of Lucullus. In the 17th centurythe island was virtually littered with Roman factories, while, two centuries later, the island served as a battery in defense of the Gulf of Naples. At the beginning of the 19th century, the island was inhabited by a hermit, nicknamed "The Wizard", who lived thanks to the almsgiving of fishermen. Soon after, the island saw the construction of the villa that occupies it today and which was owned by the maritime engineer, Nelson Foley, brother-in-law to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Foley also owned the Villa Bechi on the mainland opposite Isola di Gaiola. From 1896-1903 the owner of the Villa Bechi was Norman Douglas, author of Land of the Siren, but he sold it back to Foley. The latter built a single-person cable chair that connected the island to the mainland.
20th century
Naples's legend has considered Gaiola a "cursed island", which with its beauty hides a "restless fate", the "Gaiola Malediction." The reputation developed from the frequent misfortunes and premature deaths in the families of its 20th century owners. For example, in the 1920s, it belonged to the Swiss Hans Braun, who was found dead and wrapped in a rug. A little later, his wife drowned in the sea. The next owner was the German Otto Grunback, who died of a heart attack while staying in the island's villa. A following owner, the pharmaceutical industrialist Maurice-Yves Sandoz, committed suicide in a mental hospital in Switzerland. Its subsequent owner, a German steel industrialist, Baron Karl Paul Langheim, was dragged to economic ruin by "wild living." The island has also since belonged to: Gianni Agnelli, the Turinese owner of Fiat Automobiles, who suffered the deaths of many relatives; and to J. Paul Getty, who experienced from afar the suicide of his oldest son, death of his youngest son, and kidnapping of a grandson, before his own death. The last private owner of the island was Gianpasquale Grappone, who was jailed. Newspapers talked again about the "Gaiola Malediction" in 2009, after the murder of Franco Ambrosio and his wife Giovanna Sacco, who owned a villa opposite the island.
