 religious life. She suffered martyrdom in the year 314, during the persecution under Diocletian. Tradition says that an angel brought the saint to Minori, where her tomb on the seashore became forgotten until miraculously disclosed, when with the body of the saint were found some Latin verses beginning:
Qui tumuli causas ingressus discere quaeris, Martyris hic Trophimus intactaque virginis artus.
With great pomp the relic was deposited in the church ; many miracles followed, and large donations were given to the place, where by visions and other indications the saint expressed her determination to remain.But her repose was short, for in the year 838 Sicard, Prince of Benevento, having erected a church in his capital, went in search of relics for it, and engaged some Amalfitan sailors to procure for him the body of St. Bartholomew, preserved in the Lipari Isles. The Amalfitans, fearing that he, might seize Santa Trofimena from Minori, a town not capable of repelling his attack, carried the saint's remains by boat to Amalfi, and deposited them in the Cathedral. Sicard, returning from a successful expedition against the Saracens, directed his fleet towards Amalfi, invaded the city, and carried away the bones of Santa Trofimena 1 to Salerno, and thence to Benevento. But the following year, 839, Sicard was assassinated, and two Minoresi priests immediately begged for' the surrender of the saint, threatening the successor to the Duchy with the hostility of the Amalfitans in case of refusal ; so the relics were transported to Minori, with much rejoicing, and have remained there ever since.
Previous to the fatal storm of 1343 the beach of Minori is said to have been continuous with those of Maiori and Atrani, and even with Amalfi itself, but at the present day the port is small, sheer cliffs hemming it in on either side. The road to Ravello consists almost entirely of a staircase, and enters the commune by Torella, where the picturesque entrance of the church is mainly composed of materials brought from the dismantled convent of La Trinita at Ravello.
Atrani, viewed from the sea, is one of the most picturesque towns on the coast. Wedged into a narrow cleft of the rock, and possessing no land for cultivation, the many-coloured houses rise one above the other, and perch upon the crags above. The street is a narrow dark stair winding and burrowing under the houses, until it ends in the footpath ascending the Dragone valley. The shore of Atrani was destroyed with the rest of the coast in 1343, and the road to Amalfi now passes along the face of the precipitous cliff, the foot of which is washed by the waves that closed over the former defences and dockyards of the Republic.'
In the ancient church of S. Salvatore are interred several Doges of Amalfi, and this is by some supposed to have been the scene of their investiture. The bronze doors given by Pantaleone Vivetta date from 1087.
A curious stone represents two peacocks with tails outspread, apparently weeping; between them an olive-tree supports a bird sitting on eight eggs. At the foot of one peacock is a human head with a harpy or siren on either side, and beneath the other two birds are pecking at a hare.
Sacked by the armies of Pisa in 1135 and 1137, Atrani was on the latter occasion depopulated, and became the abode of foreign sailors, mostly from Alexandria, engaged in trading with Amalfi. During the quarrels between Manfred and the Pope, in the thirteenth century, the former sequestrated the revenues of the vacant see of Amalfi, and to punish the Amalfitans for their opposition to him, gave permission to the Saracens, expelled from Sicily, to settle at Atrani. The Atranese are still considered to have Eastern characteristics and to differ from the other inhabitants of the Costiera, and their dialect retains many Arabic words and modes of expression.
The Torre dello Ziro, on the rock that divides Atrani from Amalfi, is a prominent object in the landscape viewed from either side. Erected under the Aragonese rule, the name has arisen from a fancied resemblance to a cylindrica