Li Galli are three small islands called Gallo Lungo, Rotonda and Castelletto. According to the legend told by the Greek Home, in this blue sea the sirens tempted Ulysses on his way back home. It is the Greek figurative art which identifies the sirens in the rocks. The 3 islands have always stood as a point of reference for sailors. But around them there are sea currents and sea whirlpools which crashed the sailor boats on the islands. These victims should have been the siren's victims and Ulysses did not die because
Circe the witch warned him of the danger. Another legend tells that the sirens were tranformed when they tried to catch Ulysses but failed and died. Since 1131 the islands have been known as Guallo, that is Gallo. And in 1225 Federico II gave them to the parish of Positano calling them tre sirenas que dicitur gallus, three sirens called gallus, that is why today Li Galli. Il Gallo Lungo is the biggest island and it was the only one who had been inhabited since Roman times. In the following centuries the ruins were used by the Saracens to start their incursions on the main land.
In 1924 the American choreographer Leonide Massine had a majestic villa built on those ruins, which later on the architect Le Corbusier made even more charming (here is a beautiful documentary). Among the last owners of the island there was also the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev who bought the island for the price of more than 3 billions of Italian lira. Some of the most famous guests of this corner of Paradise are Greta Garbo, Princess Margharet of England, Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman, Anna Magnani, Sofia Loren, Jacqueline Kennedy, Onassin, Franco Zeffirelli and a lot more