Naples
Visiting Naples
Visiting Naples means immersing yourself in a setting of extraordinary and complex beauty. 2,500 years of history are represented and reconstructed in the wonderful works of art and architecture which are interwoven and overlaid in today's urban fabric. They offer the visitor the chance to map out their own learning journey, deciding just how much to find out and what to visit.
Every corner of the city reveals works of incredible historic and artistic value. The city Museums house collections of works of art and archaeological remains which are amongst the finest and most significant in the world. But there is not only ancient art. Two contemporary art galleries have recently opened up inside equally beautiful ancient buildings in the city centre (the PAN and the M.A.D.R.E.). Their numerous exhibitions of foreign and Italian artists enable the visitor to discover a newly-revived cultural vivacity.
So, welcome to Naples, a city of art whose extraordinary architecture and natural landscape add to its magnificence, with its sea, thousands of different colours, ancient city walls and buildings and a long tradition of food and wine as well.
Welcome to the centre of the city, where you can find your way to a Museum, a particular street or square, a monument or just wander around the oldest historic centre in Europe, a real open-air museum which is a UNESCO world heritage site.
Discovering Naples
Naples is a fascinating city, rich in history, culture, art, nature and tradition. The territory was firt colonised on the 9th century BC, almost 3000 years ago when "Anatonian and Achaean merchants and travellers arrived in the gulf, on their way to the rich mineral areas of the High Tyrrhene", and founded Partenope in the area which includes the isle of Megaride (the present-day Castel dell'Ovo) and the Mount Echia Promontory (the present-day Monte di Dio and Pizzofalcone).
Naples is also a very complex place, a kaleidoscope of sensations and emotions which penetrate the spirit and leaves visitors spellbound. It is not just one city, it is several cities one inside the other, very different from each other but at the same time linked by something indefinable that they have in common. To set out to discover Naples is to undertake a wonderful journey through the human soul and its infinite facets.
Places
Buildings, churches, streets, ancient fortresses and castles in the sea, as well as natural caves and places impregnated with mystery and mysticism, all of which makes Naples unforgettable in the minds of all travellers.
No only natural stages, but places symbolic of the city, an integral part of its history, of mythology and the legends that have touched it.
Castel dell'Ovo
Castel dell'Ovo stands on the ancient isle of Megaride. One of the most fantastic of the Neapolitan legends takes its name from the egg which Virgil is said to have hidden inside a cage in the underground parts of the castle.
The place where the egg was kept was locked up with heavy locks and kept secret because "everything concerning the Marine Castle and its fortune depended on the egg". It was on the isle of Megaride that the Cumaenns (of Greek-Euboaen origin) arrived in their ships half way through the 7th century BC; on Mount Echia which lay behind the isle they founded the town (or at least an inhabited area) of Partenope, the necropolis of which was discovered at no.10 Via Nicotera in in 1949 during the digging of the foundations of a building to replace one which was destroyed by the bombardments of World War II.
In the first century AD, during the Roman occupation, on the isle and on Mount Echia was built the famous villa of Lucio Licinio Lucullo, whose gardens and fountains probably stretched as far as the present-day Piazza Municipio, as shown by remains discovered by the recent excavations beneath Castel nuovo. Of the villa there remain the drums of the columns of the so-called "Hall of Columns" which, during the Late Middle Ages was used as a refectory by one of the convents built on the isle and the remains of a nymphaeum on the terrace of Mount Echia.
Today, Castel dell'Ovo hosts exhibitions and other events.
Castel Nuovo
The building of the Castel Nuovo, also called Maschio Angioino, began in 1279 under the reign of Charles I of Anjou, on the basis of a plan by the French architect Pierre de Chaule. The strategic position of the new castle gave it the characteristics not only of a royal residence, but also those of a fortress. From the very beginning it was called "Castrum Novum" to distinguish it from the older castles dell'Ovo and Capuano.
During the reign of Robert of Anjou the castle became a centre of culture giving hospitality to artists, doctors and men of letters among whom were Giotto, Petrarch and Boccaccio. The Anjevins were succeeded by the Aragonese Alfonso I who, like his predecessors, used the Castel Nuovo as the royal residence, beginning work of reconstruction and having built, on the outside walls, between the Torre di Mezzo (Halfway Tower) and the Torre di Guardia (Watch Tower) the impressive Triumphal Arch to celebrate his victorious entry into the city of Naples.
The time of the Aragonese saw the passage from the medieval castle-palace to the fortress as it now appears; it was adapted to the new needs of a time of war and the area surrounding the Castle lost the residential character it had under the Anjevins. The structure of the Aragonese building is undoubtedly more massive than its Anjevin predecessor and was quite similar to the present-day castle, which is the result of the clearance works of the early years of the 20th century.
At the end of the 15th century, the French succeeded to the Aragonese, though they did not remain for long as they were succeeded in turn by the Spanish viceroys and the Austrians. During the viceroy period (1503-1734), the defence structures of the castle, needed for purely miliary purposes, underwent further modification. With the advent of Charles III of Bourbon, who defeated the emperor Charles VI in 1734, the castle was surrounded by buildings of all kinds, warehouses and houses, and this happened time and time again.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, the Municipal Council began the work of isolating the castle from the annexed buildings in recognition of the historical and monumental importance of the fortress and the need to reclaim the piazza in front of it. The castle is today the venue of cultural events and also houses the Municipal Museum.
A tour of the museum takes us from the Armoury Hall, the Palatine or Saint Barbara Chapel, the first and second levels of the southern courtyard and the Charles V Hall and the Sala della Loggia which are to host exhibitions and cultural events.
Castel Sant'Elmo
The imposing tufo mass of the Castle on the summit of the hill is one of the best-known sites of the city of Naples.
The castle as it now appears, with its six-pointed star structure, was the work between the years 1537 and 1547 on a design by Pedro Luis Escrvà of Valenzia, an expert in military architecture in the service of the Viceroy don Pedro de Toledo, whose name appears on the inscription over the entrance portal.
"The Art Ways" - the Open-Air Museum in the Old Centre and the Decumans
The area of the old town centre was that of the first settlement of Neapolis (5th century BC), the "new city", so called to distinguish it from Palepolis, the old city that stood in the area of Pizzofalcone.
The urban plan of Neapolis was that of a "chessboard" formed of three wide roads from east to west, called "decumans": the upper decuman (Via Sapienza, Via Pisanelli, Via Anticaglia, etc.), the main decuman (Via Tribunale), and the lower decuman (Via B. Croce, Via S. Biagio dei Librai, etc.) intersected by a series of connecting roads from north to south called "cardines" (cardinal points).
The old town centre of Naples is very different from that of other Italian towns: there are stratifications of various ages beginning from the Greaco-Roman period up to today.
Via Tribunali
Our tour begins in lively Piazza Bellini with its literary cafés and background of the 18th-century piperno stairway leading to the ex-convent of Sant'Antoniello a Part'Alba, the Greek walls in the centre dating from the Neapolis of the 4th century BC. It includes Via San Pietro a Maiella where the Academy of Music is situated, and Via Tribunali with its 16th-century palace of the Dukes Spinelli di Laurino, which was transformed in the 18th century by the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice.
This road has the medieval arcades of the palazzo of Philip of Anjou (or the Emperor), prince of Taranto and Emperor of Constantinople, and here there is a picturesque market. The present-day Piazza San Gaetano is situated in the area of the Greek Agorà and the Roman Forum and is still the place where the heart of the old town beats.
To the right is the famous Via San Gregorio Armeno, so well known for its artisans' workshops making shepherd figurines, artificial flowers and Christmas cribs. Over the Christmas period, this street crawls with crowds of people when the stalls overflow with colourful things to buy. Of great interest is the layout of Piazza Riario Sforza, tightly contained in the area between the steps of the secondary entrance to the Duomo and the magnificent dome of the Chapel of San Gennaro, with Naples' oldest guglia monument to the saint at its centre.
This area, which was once used for festivities outside the San Gennaro Chapel, was immortalised in a famous watercolour painting by the Neapolitan painter Giacinto Gigante. At the end of the Main Decuman stands the impressive Royal Palace-Fortress of Castel Capuano, with its ancient entranceway to the city, reconstructed in Renaissance style.
Pio Monte della Misericordia
Il Pio Monte della Misericordia è una Istituzione di beneficenza, ancora attiva, fondata nel 1602 da sette nobiluomini napoletani. Il seicentesco palazzo custodisce una delle più importanti raccolte private italiane aperte al pubblico: al primo piano, sono esposte, oltre che la prestigiosa collezione donata dal pittore Francesco De Mura, opere dal XVI al XIX secolo, tra cui Giordano, Ribera, Vaccaro, Stanzione. Di notevole rilevanza il dipinto eseguito da Caravaggio Le Sette Opere di Misericordia (1607), collocato in Chiesa sull'altare maggiore.
The monumental complex
Since 1982 the monumental complex has been given in delivery to the Soprintendenza for the Artistic and Historical Assets of Naples, that has destined the advanced plan of the high jail to center of the history library of the art "Bruno Molajoli".
Today the Castle is center of the offices of the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Napoletano and has become a center of documentation of the of Campania artistic patrimony.
Moreover, they have been recovers the wide spaces of the outpatient's departments and of the high jail to accommodate important extensions of ancient and contemporary art
Upper Decuman
From Largo Regina Coeli, where stands the convent complex of Santa Maria Regina Coeli, a convent which contains paintings by Stanzione, Luca Giordano and Micco Spadro, we go long Via Pisanelli. As we pass under the octagonal campanile of the church, to the left w see the 17th-century monastery of S. Maria di Gerusalemme known as the Church of the Trentatre, a name deriving from the number of nuns who were cloistered there.
In the nearby Via L. Armanni stands the hospital of Santa Maria del Popolo of the Incurables, founded in th 16th century with the splendid Pharmacy of the 18th century. Via Anticaglia is so called after the structure of the brick arch (2nd century BC), the brick of which serve as reinforcement to the "cavea" of the Roman Theatre where the Emperor Nero performed.
The open-air theatre and the Odèion occupy the area between Via Anticaglia, Via San Paolo and the convent of S. Paolo Maggiore. We see Palazzo Avellino, in the small square of the same name dating from the end of the 14th century, built for Ottino Caracciolo, Prince of Avellino and enlarged in the 17th century.
We reach Via Duomo, one of the ancient cardinal points of the city which takes its name from the imposing Cathedral that houses so many works of art and here the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro takes place. The square where the 14th-century Palazzo dell'Arcivescovado stands takes the name of Donnarumma from the baroque church near the 4th-century one of the same name.
Further on, we come to the Church of the Santissimi Apostoli, founded in the 5th century on the same spot as a pagan temple. At the end of Via Carbonara (Carbonarius), outside the Anjevin walls, used during the Middle Ages for dumping refuse and later for jousts and tournaments, there stands, high up with a view of the Sanfelice, the complex of San Giovanni a Carbonara, an impressive example of Renaissance sculpture.
Spaccanapoli
We begin our visit in Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, so called after the baroque Jesuit church built in the area of the Renaisance palazzo Sansevero, of which it retains the diamond-pointed rusticated façade; the fulcrum of the area is the baroque guglia dell'Immacolata, erected between 1747 and 1750 with funds from public subscription.
We walk down Via Benedetto Croce lined by monumental noble palazzi, among which is Palazzo Filomarino where the philosopher Benedetto Croce lived and died. The road lead into Piazza San Domenico Maggiore with the polygonal apse of the church of the same name and the gothic portal of Sant'Angelo a Morfisa, closed on the other three sides by important aristocratic palazzi: Petrucci, Casacalenda, Sangro di Sansevero and Corigliano.
In the centre, the wonderful guglia of C. Fanzago and D.A. Vaccaro, erected to give release from a vow made during the plague of 1656. A visit to the Sansevero Chapel is a must; here you can se the Veiled Christ, a famous masterpiece of Neapolitan sculpture by Giurseppe Sanmartino.
Along Via San Biagio dei Librai, so called because of the bookshops that were once there, and now goldsmiths, we see several Renaissance palazzi: the Monte di Pietà with its annexed Chapel, Marigliano and Carafa Santangelo. Along Via Duomo, don't miss the Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore, built between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries, but redesigned by Cosimo Fanzago in the 17th century. In the 19th century, one of the naves was eliminated in order to widen Via Duomo.
The Piperno Cave in the locality of Masseria del Monte in Pianura
The block rocks of the Phlegraean Fields
The built-up patrimony of the Phlegraean Fields dating from Greek and Roman times consists mainly of block-type rocks, like gravestones which cropped out in the Phlegraean caldera and in the immediately surrounding srea. The road surfaces were laid in grey lava stone (Arco Felice Vecchio and the Via Sacra to Cuma). Other linkways used for trading and military purposes (The Cave of Pozzuoli, the Cave of Seiano, the Cocceio Viaduct) were dug out by the Romans in the Neapolitan Yellow Tufo and in the Yellow Tufo that crops out in the Phlegraean caldera. The use first by the Greeks and then by the Romans of Grey Campania Tufo, a rock that rapidly deteriorates by the action of exterior agents, was somewhat limited. One of the main reasons for the inhabitants digging into the subsoil was that these rocks are easily dug out, and above all easy to work. Also, the need to obtain building materials from the subsoil was imposed by the increasing urban expansion of the city.
Another reason for the presence of a cavea network in the suboil of Naples is that the city is built exclusively on volcanic ground and therefore lacked a basic natural resource: water, with the exception of that of the River Sebeto. For this reason, the creation of the Claudio Aqueduct (1st century AD) and the Carmignano Aqueduct (17th century) was indispensible. The Claudio Aqueduct carried the waters of the Serino through a network (about 90 kilometres) of underground passages dug out of the tufaceous rock and the water was from time to time collected in cisterns until it ended up in the Piscina Mirabilis of Bacoli, a reservoir.
Most of these works in the underground environment were created by digging into the Yellow Neapolitan Tufo; its width, often more than one hundred metres, constitutes the basic framework of Naples. For this reason, the whole cavea network recorded by the Ufficio Sicurezza geologica e Sottosuolo of the Commune of Naples (the department responsible for geological and subsoil security) extends throughout the whole volcanic area.
The Piperno Quarry in Masseria del Monte in Pianura
Another kind of volcanic formation, much older than Yellow Neapolitan Tufo, is to be found in the Phlegraean Fields. This is the piperno of Soccavo and Pianura, a unique rock that is not found elsewhere in the world. The urban history of Soccavo and Pianura, municipalities situated at the foot of the Camaldoli hill, is closely linked to the concept of the hamlet as an early grouping of rural dwellings (De Seta, 1984). They were situated along Via Puteoli-Neapolis,on the hill, just beyond Via Antiniana. The Map of the Dukedom of Noja in 1775 shows the first signs of the hamlets of Soccavo and Pianura, which remained socially and culturally autonomous until 1926-27 when, with urban reform, they were annexed to the city of Naples.
These two hamlets were noted not only for their mainly agricultural economy, but above all because it was here that the piperno masters began to appear, a fact which gave an impulse to the extraction process at the end of the 15th century, when the city walls of Naples were rebuilt.
The piperno of Pianura began to be quarried in 1250, when it is likely that a more permanently settlement began to be established around the activity of piperno extraction (Coleterra et al., 2003). Quarrying ceased in Pianura after World War II. What is sure is that piperno, as a building and ornamental material for the architecture of Naples, played a pre-eminent role.
It can be seen at every corner of the old city, in the cloisters of the most beautiful churches and on the facades of the old palazzi. It is a rock that has a very characteristic texture, a scramble of dark-grey lenticular lines, called "flames", of variable length and depth in a light-grey matrix.
Differently from Yellow Neapolitan Tufo, piperno is a very tough stone, and is therefor difficult to extract unless it is split into large blocks which were worked on afterwards, probably in the open air. It is hard and resistant to atmospheric agents, and for this reason has been used for the facing of buildings (Maschio Angioino, the entrance to the Parco Virgiliano and the Church of Gesù Nuovo) as well as for the construction of the portals of palazzi in the historical centre (the cloisters of S. Marcellino, the Courtyard of the Statues of the Federico II University).
At present, the piperno slabs covering the walls of the buildings of the historical centre have "flame" shapesand sizes which are totally different from one another, in spite of coming from the same quarries in Soccavo and Pianura. The much-discussed development of the Piperno Quarry of Masseria del Monte and Pianura is partly the result of there being so many different types of piperno in the same quarry; this suggests that, according to the requests that came in, the piperno masters followed veins of homogenous types of stone I terms of their texture, but which were in different places and at different depths of the quarry (Albertini et al., 1994). Such variations are the result of the origin of the volcanic formations, the times and types of explosion. 
The Piperno Quarry in Masseria del Monte in Pianura
Brief outline of the volcanic activity of the Phlegraean Fields
Geographically, the Phlegraean Fields covers an active volcanic area stretching from the Posillipo ridge northwards to Cuma. In effect, a distinction is made between this area, known as the Continental Phlegraean Fields, and the so-called Insular Phlegraean Fields - that is, the islands of Ischia, Procida and Vivara.
The products of the oldest volcanic activity (Paleo Campi Flegrae) are found on the islands of Procida and Vivara, in the Monte di Procida area and in the quarries bordering the Quarto Plain. The real volcanic activity of the Phlegraean Fields began with the great eruption of the Ignimbrite Campana (circa 39 kaB.P. - De Vivo et al., 2001).
This created a pyroclastic stream which spread over the Campania Plain as far as the carbonate spurs of the Monti Lattari and Picenti to the south and the Roccamorfina area to the north. There is no consensus on where the centre of the Ignimbrite Campana eruption was (I.C.).
Some writers associate it with the calderic collapse that caused a vast area corresponding to the present-day Phlegraean Fields to subside. Others see the Ignimbrite Campana as a product of a huge eruption of a fissural nature deriving from a series of fractures in the wider area of the plain.
Since the eruption of I.C., the Phlegraean Fields have seen only limited volcanic activity, the products being traceable within the city of Naples, along the Posillipo ridge, and above all on the Camaldoli Hill (Di Girolamo et al., 1984). These products consist of eject of variable welding, generically known as Old Tufo of the City of Naples. Products of the same era are to be found on the island of Procida. 
Another important event in the volcanic activity of the Phlegraean Fields was the Yellow Neapolitan Tufo eruption, recently dated at 40 Ar/39 Ar, at about 15 ky B.P. (Deino et al., 2004). This formation, which has an incoherent facies (Pozzolana Auct) and a lithoid one, makes up the basic structure of the city of Naples. Connected with the Yellow Neapolitan Tufo eruption is the calderic collapse from which the sunken morphology of the Phlegraean Fields originates.
In the last 10 ky B.P., the interior of the Phlegraean caldera has seen various eruptions from menogenetic centres, episodes each consisting of a single eruption. In an area which is volcanically active, eruptions of an explosive nature are the main cause of rapid morphological modification of the appearance of the terrain.
In the Phlegraean Fields, the most recent of these modifications occurred following the eruption that in 1538 gave birth to the Monte Nuovo. They are still volcanically active places and are highly developed, densely populated urban centres such as Naples itself and the communes of Pozzuoli, last 5000 years, the explosive eruptions would emit products that would be distributed mostly like pyrcoclasic streams, whose trajectories would be greatly conditioned by the existing typographical barriers. The above photograph shows the map of where the volcanic risks lie, a simulation based on the positioning of deposits, and we see that that the areas of Naples within the Phlegraean caldera are in fact those potentially most exposed to risk.