PLACES
Naples as you've never seen it before!
Enjoy an immersive experience of art, history and culture. Explore places that tell stories of centuries of spirituality and beauty. Take a virtual stroll through silent cloisters and monumental architecture. Each setting is a window onto a unique heritage, where past and present interact through frescoes, sculptures and ancient documents.
National Library of Naples
Located inside the imposing Royal Palace, the National Library of Naples is one of the largest and oldest libraries in Italy. A treasure trove of knowledge and collective memory, it houses hundreds of thousands of volumes, rare manuscripts, maps and historical documents, including valuable materials on Neapolitan history and culture. In this place, the written word becomes a bridge between eras and thoughts, between reality and imagination. It is a symbol of the importance of education and critical thinking, and in the Parthenope project it represents the transmission of knowledge, including through female figures who have made culture their tool of expression and freedom.
Museum and Royal Forest of Capodimonte
Overlooking the city from the top of the hill on which it stands, the Capodimonte Museum and Royal Park is a place where art, nature and history come together in perfect harmony. Commissioned by Charles of Bourbon in the 18th century as a hunting lodge and royal palace, today it is one of the most important art museums in Italy. Its collections include masterpieces by Italian and European artists, including works by Artemisia Gentileschi, a testament to female talent throughout the centuries. The Royal Park, with its tree-lined paths and panoramic views, surrounds the museum, transforming it into a place of inspiration and memory.
Royal Palace of Naples
The Royal Palace of Naples dominates the majestic Piazza del Plebiscito, the symbolic heart of the city. Built in 1600 to a design by Domenico Fontana, it was originally the residence of the Spanish viceroys and, in the following centuries, was enlarged and transformed under the various European dynasties that ruled Naples. Inside, a variety of styles, furnishings and decorations tell the story of power and taste in Naples, from Spanish domination to the Bourbon era. The palace is a living museum, spanning four centuries of history, art and diplomacy. Among the figures who enlivened its halls was Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine, an enlightened sovereign who lived in these rooms and contributed to their magnificence. Today, the Royal Palace is not only an architectural monument but also a symbol of the deep bond between Naples and its cultural and institutional history.
Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara
In the ancient heart of Naples stands the majestic Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara, founded in 1310 at the behest of Sancha of Majorca, Queen of Naples and wife of Robert of Anjou. Built in Provençal Gothic style, the complex includes the church, the monastery, the majolica cloister and the archaeological area, and is one of the most iconic places of Neapolitan spirituality and art. Over the centuries, Santa Chiara has been a centre of culture, prayer and power, and still today tells the profound history of the city through the beauty of its decorations and the silence of its arches. Here, the feminine imprint of the founding queen finds its place in stone and memory, making the place a symbol of the devotion and authority of women in medieval Naples.
Castel dell'Ovo
Perched on the islet of Megaride, where according to legend the body of the siren Parthenope washed ashore, Castel dell'Ovo is the oldest castle in Naples. Its name derives from an ancient medieval legend according to which Virgil hid a magical egg in its foundations, on which the fate of the entire city depended. But it was much earlier, in Greek mythology, that this place took on a profound meaning: it is here that the first Neapolitan settlement was founded, named after a mythical female creature. Today, Castel dell'Ovo is a symbolic threshold between myth and history, between land and sea, which tells the ancient soul of Naples and its birth in the name of a woman. Visiting this place means tracing the origins of the city, where legend, landscape and memory merge into an entirely feminine story.
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Pietrasanta
The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Pietrasanta, located on Via dei Tribunali in Naples, was founded in 533 by Bishop Pomponio on an ancient Roman structure, of which the floors and mosaics remain. According to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to the bishop and asked him to build the church to counteract the demonic presence of a hellish pig, linking the foundation to the miraculous discovery of a “Holy Stone”. The Romanesque bell tower (10th-11th century), one of the oldest in Naples, preserves reused Roman architectural elements. After the earthquake of 1456, the basilica was rebuilt in the 17th century to a design by Cosimo Fanzago, with a Greek cross plan and a 65-metre dome. Severely damaged during the Second World War, it was closed for decades and even used as a warehouse in the 1970s. It was only reopened for worship in 2007. Today, the complex, with its chapels and underground chambers, represents an important synthesis of the history of Naples.
Church of the Pietà dei Turchini
The Church of Pietà dei Turchini, located in Via Medina in Naples, takes its name from the colour of the turquoise robes worn by the orphans housed in the adjoining institute, which included an orphanage, church and music conservatory, founded between 1592 and 1607. The original building, completed in 1595, had a single nave with five chapels on each side. Between 1633 and 1639, it was enlarged with a transept, apse and dome thanks to funds raised by the governors of the institute and benefactors such as Gaspar Roomer. The work involved several architects and craftsmen, including Felice di Marino, Diego Pacifico and Giovan Battista Vinaccia. The dome underwent frequent restoration due to structural fragility and seismic damage, with work carried out between 1674 and 1725. In 1739, the floor was laid, while between 1769 and 1770, Bartolomeo Vecchione designed a monumental atrium (now lost) and finished the Rococo-style façade, preceded by a wrought iron gate. The interior, with a single nave, has ten chapels and two large chapels in the transept, in the solemn and catechetical style of the Counter-Reformation. The chapels are decorated with masterpieces by artists such as Luca Giordano, Paolo De Matteis, Battistello Caracciolo, Andrea Vaccaro and Belisario Corenzio, with sacred subjects inspired by the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints. The church is an important example of Baroque art and spirituality in Naples.
Church and Convent of Santa Maria Apparente
The Church of Santa Maria Apparente is located along Corso Vittorio Emanuele. It was built starting in 1581 by Father Filippo da Perugia to venerate the image of the Virgin Mary, which was initially placed inside a votive shrine. In the dedication of the church, the name of Mary as “apparente” (apparent) is found on a plaque dating back to 1624, but popular tradition has also handed down the version of Santa Maria a Parete (Saint Mary on the Wall), referring to the appearance of a light on the hill where the current building stands, seen by some fishermen who were lost at sea during a storm. The project was entrusted to the architect Giovan Battista Cavagna, and between 1634 and 1656, the building was enlarged on the initiative of Father Eugenio da Perugia. The entrance to the church is located at the end of a monumental staircase that balances the difference in height between Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the rear part where the convent is located at the height of Via Filippo Palizzi. The interior of the church has a Greek cross plan. Above the high altar is a painting by Giulio dell'Oca, dated 1611, depicting the Virgin Mary with Saints Anthony and Francis. Other notable works include a Crucifixion attributed to Onofrio Palumbo and a Saint Samuel by Francesco De Maria. The convent was suppressed by the Bourbons and used as a prison, housing up to 116 prisoners, including Luigi Settembrini, husband of Raffaella Luigia Faucitano. In 1905, it became the “Palazzo degli Ufficiali” (Officers' Palace). Today, it is used as private residences.
Church of San Gregorio Armeno
In the heart of Naples' historic centre, along Via San Gregorio Armeno, stands the church of the same name, also known as the Church of Santa Patrizia. Its origins are ancient: according to some sources, it was built in the 9th century, perhaps on the ruins of the temple of Ceres, while other hypotheses date it back to the 8th century, when a group of Basilian nuns who had fled Constantinople brought the relics of St. Gregory of Armenia there. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the church underwent profound changes, becoming one of the finest examples of Neapolitan Baroque. Passing through the 16th-century marble portal, you enter an interior richly decorated with gilded stucco, marble and frescoes. The single nave houses five side chapels and a rectangular presbytery. The 62 frescoes by Luca Giordano stand out, including the magnificent “Glory of St. Gregory” in the dome. The coffered ceiling is decorated with Flemish panels, while two raised choirs embellish the apse and the nuns' area with works by Giordano and a 14th-century relief of the Madonna and Child. The church also has five organs, some of which are housed in Rococo wooden choir lofts. The fifth chapel on the right houses the relics of Saint Patricia, an object of profound devotion. San Gregorio Armeno is today a true jewel of art and spirituality in the heart of Naples.
Church and Convent of
San Domenico Soriano
The Church of San Domenico Soriano stands in what is now Piazza Dante, once called Largo Mercatello and then Foro Carolino with the opening of the hemicycle designed by Luigi Vanvitelli in Naples. Originally, the church and convent were built thanks to a donation received by Sara Ruffo di Mesurica to the Dominican Tommaso Vesti. The Calabrian Dominicans thus acquired the small church of Santa Maria della Salute, built in 1587. Subsequently, in 1619, the architect Fra Giuseppe Nuvolo worked on the building, and between 1673 and 1685, the convent was built by Bonaventura Presti, Francesco Antonio Picchiatti, and Giuseppe Caracciolo. The church, with three naves and side chapels, features Baroque decorations by Cosimo Fanzago and paintings by Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano and other artists of the 17th-century Neapolitan school. The religious complex also includes a cloister, designed by the Dominican friar Tommaso Vesti, who came from Calabria and began work in 1606. It was later enlarged by the Bolognese architect Bonaventura Presti and underwent numerous changes over time, as did the building of the former convent. Maria Cristina of Savoy founded a workshop producing beds, clothing and blankets to be given to needy families within the convent of San Domenico Soriano. Later, with the suppression of religious orders, the spaces were used as police barracks until 1825, then as military pavilions until 1925, when it was sold to the municipality, which used it as a registry office, which is still in use today. In 2018, the church changed its name to the Church of Saints Domenico Soriano and Nunzio Sulprizio in honour of the saint whose body is placed on the high altar.
Conservatory S. Pietro Majella
Starting in the mid-16th century, Naples saw the birth of four music conservatories (Pietà dei Turchini, Poveri di Gesù Cristo, Sant’Onofrio a Porta Capuana, Santa Maria di Loreto), founded by the clergy for educational and welfare purposes for poor children and orphans. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, these institutions not only offered shelter but also high-level musical training, producing music for courts, nobles and churches. At the end of the 18th century, for economic and administrative reasons, they were gradually unified: in 1806, at the behest of Joseph Napoleon, the Royal College of Music was founded at the Pietà dei Turchini. Two years later, it was transferred to the Monastery of San Sebastiano (where Bellini studied), and in 1826, with the return of the Bourbons, it was moved to its current location in the former convent of San Pietro a Majella. This was the official birthplace of the “Royal Conservatory of Music of San Pietro a Majella”, which became a reference point for music in southern Italy. With the unification of Italy, the Conservatory adapted to national regulations, but in 1890 it obtained recognition as an autonomous body. The building, a former Celestine convent, houses classrooms, two courtyards – one with a statue of Beethoven by Francesco Jerace – an auditorium, a library with precious manuscripts and a museum with historical instruments. Its illustrious students include Riccardo Muti, Mercadante, Bellini and Leoncavallo.
Federico II Institute of Chemistry and Physics
The Institute of Chemistry where Maria Bakunin taught and worked was built in the context of the great project of Redevelopment of Naples. The Federico II University was faced with a substantial reorganization of its spaces. The project was entrusted to engineers Guglielmo Melisurgo and Pier Paolo Quaglia, who between 1893 and 1896 drew up a plan that included not only the renovation of the former Jesuit college (which dates back to the mid-sixteenth century), but also the construction of three new buildings, intended to house the Rectorate, the Faculties of Letters and Law and the Institutes of Chemistry and Physics. These works were completed with the construction of the central body of the university on the Rettifilo and the two set-back bodies, connected by the staircase that allowed the difference in height of more than seven meters to be overcome. The Institute of Chemistry was located in the building on the left of the famous Scalone della Minerva, with an entrance on via Mezzocannone 4. This building, the twin of the one that housed the Institute of Physics, has a T-shaped plan and has an octagonal “amphitheatre-like” classroom located near the junction with the staircase, a feature that highlighted the design attention towards the teaching needs of the time. The then director of the Institute of Chemistry was Agostino Oglialoro Todaro, Bakunin's husband since 1896. The history of the Institute continued with further changes that reflected the transformations of the Neapolitan University. In 1970, thanks to the availability of the premises freed by the transfer of the Faculty of Engineering to the new complex in Piazzale Tecchio in Fuorigrotta, the Institute found a new location in via Mezzocannone 16. The new millennium marked a phase of further territorial expansion of the University, with the construction of the Monte Sant'Angelo complex where the Department of Chemical Sciences has been located since 2012.
Pignasecca
Pignasecca is one of the liveliest and most characteristic places in the historic center of Naples, located between Spaccanapoli and via Toledo, near the current Piazza Salvo D'Acquisto. Formerly a rural area called “Biancomangia”, it was urbanized in the sixteenth century by will of Don Pedro de Toledo with the construction of via Toledo. According to a legend, the name “Pignasecca” derives from a single surviving pine that dried up over time; another version tells of magpies who, by stealing objects from houses and accumulating them on pine trees, triggered gossip and even a bull of excommunication from the bishop. The area soon became an important commercial and transit centre, animated above all by ordinary women, the “putecare”, street vendors who were protagonists of the social life of the neighbourhood. Among the historical figures, Marianna De Crescenzo stands out, known as “the Sangiuvannara”, a patriot born right in via Pignasecca. Today the Pignasecca market retains its lively soul, among stalls, fishmongers, intense smells and voices that tell of a neighborhood still faithful to its roots. Walking there means immersing yourself in an authentic cross-section of popular and true Naples.
Monastery of San Gregorio Armeno
The monastery of San Gregorio Armeno was born in Naples after 726, when some Basilian nuns fled Constantinople due to iconoclastic persecution and took refuge in the deaconry of San Gennaro all'Olmo. With the help of Bishop-Duke Stephen II, they founded a monastery dedicated to Saint Gregory, which was joined in 1025 by that of Saint Pantaleon, connected by an overpass that is still visible. The complex welcomed noble Neapolitan girls and already had dozens of nuns in medieval times. Originally the monastery was structured as a citadel of independent homes. With the Counter-Reformation, Abbess Lucrezia Caracciolo promoted an architectural and spiritual reform, building a new building with a cloister, high walls, grates and a church also accessible from the outside. Some nuns abandoned the convent, while others converged there from suppressed monasteries. The current appearance dates back to the transformations of the 16th century by Giovan Battista Cavagna. The cloister, open to the public since 1922, preserves a splendid fountain with marble statues from 1733 by Bottigliero. Of particular interest is the ingenious autonomous water system. Inside there are environments rich in sacred art, such as the “nuns' corridor” and the refined “abbess's sitting room”. There is no shortage of the seventeenth-century wooden choir, the refectory and the ancient oven where the nuns prepared the famous convent desserts.
Bagnara Palace
Palazzo Bagnara is one of the most important examples of Neapolitan civil architecture. Its history intertwines the events of ambitious bourgeois, noble families and intellectuals, making it a symbol of Neapolitan cultural vitality. It stands in what was once known as Largo del Mercatello (today Piazza Dante). The construction of the building dates back to 1631 by order of Giovan Battista De Angelis, a jurist of humble origins known for his work as a legal advisor and for his influence within the Collateral Council of the Viceroyalty of Naples. A curious figure, De Angelis was also known for his corpulence and his habit of traveling only by carriage. Legend has it that he died following an accidental fall from one of them. After his death, his sons sold the palace to Prince Fabrizio Ruffo, Duke of Bagnara, in 1660. He commissioned the architect Carlo Fontana to renovate it. Fontana modified the original Baroque structure by inserting two new floors above the original cornice, the first with windows and balconies at the ends and the second with square windows and a pitched roof. He then created an elongated internal courtyard with a front portico with two lateral pincer stairs and a scenographic staircase at the back enriched with neoclassical statues and a dome above the central passage. Finally, he created a family chapel, the entrance of which is visible on the left of the facade. After the death of Francesco Ruffo, his wife Ippolita married the famous doctor Domenico Cotugno. Subsequently, the palace passed to Vincenzo Ruffo, who entrusted further works to Vincenzo Salomone, before Fabrizio Ruffo sold the family's collection of furniture, paintings and jewels to the State, now exhibited at the San Martino Museum. In the early nineteenth century, the palace was inhabited by the Marquis Basilio Puoti, an illustrious philologist and promoter of the so-called school of purists, aimed at defending the Tuscan language in the context of Italian literary Romanticism. Among the best-known pupils was Francesco De Sanctis, future first minister of education in Italian history. In 1830, Maria Giuseppina Guacci Nobile also joined this school: this represented a crucial moment in her education.
Sanità Bridge
The Sanità bridge, today officially named after Maddalena Cerasuolo, is located in Naples, and overlooks the Rione Sanità, in the Stella district. 118 meters long and equipped with six arches, the bridge connects two important streets of the city, via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi and Corso Amedeo di Savoia, originally united under the name of Corso Napoleone. The construction of the bridge was decided at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the will of Joseph Bonaparte who promoted an ambitious urban and infrastructural renewal program. The objective was to create a direct and smooth connection between the city center and the Royal Palace of Capodimonte. To create the route to the palace it was necessary to overcome the difference in height of the Sanità valley, and from here arose the need to build a bridge that could cross the entire neighborhood from above. The project was entrusted to the Neapolitan architect Nicola Leandro, and work began between 1806 and 1807, continuing then under the reign of Joachim Murat. The bridge was officially completed in 1809. However, its construction brought significant consequences on the cultural heritage of the area. In fact, to make room for the new infrastructure, the main cloister of the seventeenth-century complex of Santa Maria della Sanità was demolished, while the smaller cloister, oval in shape, suffered serious compromises. The entire monastery was eventually suppressed, in line with the policy of cancelling monastic orders and confiscating their assets by the state. The Sanità bridge is not only an important engineering work, but over time it has become a symbol of Neapolitan resistance. During the Four Days of Naples, in September 1943, German soldiers, forced to retreat by the popular revolt, attempted to destroy the bridge to prevent connections between the center and the northern area of the city. On 29 September, thanks to the courage of Maddalena Cerasuolo, the bridge was saved from destruction. Lenuccia, so called, took an active part in the defense of the bridge, demonstrating great courage and contributing significantly to its salvation. In his honor, in fact, the bridge was renamed with his name, becoming a place of memory and symbol of the freedom achieved.
Trianon-Viviani Theatre
The Trianon Theatre, today “Trianon-Viviani Theatre”, was inaugurated in 1911 in Piazza Vincenzo Calenda, in the Forcella district, to enrich the cultural offer of the newly created Corso Umberto I. The name recalls the famous royal pavilions of Versailles. The theater incorporates an important archaeological evidence: the Mermaid Tower, the only surviving tower of the ancient city walls of Neapolis (5th-4th century BC), symbol of the myth of Parthenope. The first show was Miseria e Nobiltà with Vincenzo Scarpetta. From the beginning, the theater hosted comedies, operettas and Neapolitan music. In the ’30s it became the cradle of the “scripted song”, then renamed “Trionfale” in the fascist era, transforming into a cinema (“Splendore”) in 1947. After periods of great success and a decline in the ’90s, in 2000 it was restored and returned to the theatrical function by Gustavo Cuccurullo. Renovated in Italianate style with 530 seats and three tiers of boxes, today it displays the Mermaid Tower in the center of the stalls. Having become public in 2006 and named after Raffaele Viviani, it was artistically directed by Nino D'Angelo until 2010 and, since 2020, by Marisa Laurito. Artists from the Neapolitan scene such as Peppe Barra, Lina Sastri, Enzo Gragnaniello, Almamegretta and Rocco Hunt perform there, making it a point of reference for Neapolitan musical and theatrical culture.
Alessandro Scarlatti street
