History

From the Cumaean colony of Partenope to the Angevin capital to the Bourbon kingdom to the pizza capital of the world (the most precisely Naples zone history: the Greek period (c.680 BCE: the founding of Parthenope (the earlier settlement on the Pizzofalcone hill, where the current Castel dell’Ovo stands on a small offshore island); c.470 BCE: the foundation of Neapolis (“New City”) by the Cumaeans on the flatland east of Parthenope; the specific name (Neapolis was so named in contrast to the older Parthenope which became “Palaiopolis” = “Old City”); the Roman period (326 BCE: Napoli surrendered to Rome without being sacked (the specific consequence: the city grid was preserved because there was no tabula rasa destruction; Napoli was the wealthiest Greek city in the Roman Empire, maintaining its Greek language, Greek games, and Greek customs until the 4th century CE; the Crypta Neapolitana (the tunnel through the Posillipo hill: 711 m long, 4.5 m wide; dug in the Roman period (c.37 BCE; attributed to Cocceius, the architect of Augustus); still visible under Piedigrotta; Virgil’s tomb (the traditional identification: a 1st-century CE Roman columbarium tomb on the Posillipo hill above the tunnel entrance; the identification as Virgil’s tomb is traditional from the Middle Ages and is not archaeologically confirmed; Petrarch visited it in 1341 CE)); the Anjou period (1266 CE: Charles I of Anjou conquered Naples from the Hohenstaufen; the capital moved from Palermo to Naples; the Castel Nuovo (1279–82 CE: “Maschio Angioino”; Robert of Anjou’s court (1309–43 CE): Boccaccio and Petrarch lived in Naples at this court; the Salle Grande has a recently rediscovered fresco cycle by Giotto (c.1330 CE: only fragments survive; the work was the largest Giotto commission in Italy after Padua); the Aragonese period (1442 CE: Alfonso I of Aragon conquered Naples; the humanist court of Alfonso, Ferrante, and Alfonso II: the academy of Giovanni Pontano (Pontaniana Academy); Lorenzo Valla wrote the Donation of Constantine forgery debunking here in 1440 CE; the Spanish Viceroy period (1503–1713 CE: the longest period of foreign rule; the Toledo grid (Don Pedro de Toledo, Viceroy 1532–53 CE: the Via Toledo (today Via Roma) extending the city southwestward; the building of the Quartieri Spagnoli (the Spanish soldiers’ barracks quarter: a rectilinear grid west of the Via Toledo, the most densely urban area of Naples today))); the Bourbon period (1734 CE: Charles VII of Bourbon (later Charles III of Spain) captured Naples from the Austrians; the Bourbon Naples (the Royal Palace (1600 CE, Domenico Fontana; expanded Bourbon period); the Palazzo Reale di Caserta (1752 CE, Vanvitelli; 30 km north; UNESCO 1997); the San Carlo opera house (1737 CE: the oldest continuously operating opera house in the world; opened 4 November 1737 CE, 41 years before La Scala in Milan)).