59 Best Sights in Naples, Italy

Set behind what would be a very English expanse of lawn (minus the palm trees), this salmon-pink building with its Athenian-style porch was built in 1826 for Ferdinand Acton, the son of English aristocrat Sir John Acton. In 1841 it was bought by the Rothschild banking family, who brought in Gaetano Genovese—he of the Palazzo Reale's sumptuous staircase—to design the Salotto Rosso and the ballroom. The villa then passed to a distant ancestor of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, and eventually to the Italian State in 1955. The villa contains a sumptuous collection of porcelain and a biblioteca-discoteca—a collection of classical and operatic records. It exhibits part of Banco di Napoli's collection of paintings, including works by masters of Neapolitan Baroque, and has 18th- and 19th-century landscapes.

This impressive museum exhibits brilliantly restored works by late-Gothic, Renaissance, and Neapolitan Baroque masters. It incorporates the Baroque church of Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova, which was started in 1617 and consecrated 50 years later for Franciscan nuns (les Clarisses), and the Gothic Donnaregina Vecchia, which was damaged by an earthquake. In more modern times the building was used as legal offices before being closed completely, and becoming prey to the occasional theft as well as bomb damage during World War II. In 2008 the space was officially reborn as a museum.

The last two works of Luca Giordano, The Wedding at Cana and The Multiplication of Loaves, both from 1705, are displayed on either side of the church's altar, which was moved from the original church. The central painting focuses on the life of the Virgin Mary, while the first chapel on the left houses French painter Charles Mellin's beautiful Immaculate Conception (1646). To the left of the nave is a space rich in Gothic and Renaissance statuary from the former church. Take the elevator upstairs to where the nuns once attended Mass, concealed from the congregation by screens. The works on display there follow the theme of life as an Imitation of Christ. There is also the chance to see Francesco Solimena's 17th-century roof frescoes close up, with floodlights showing off their restoration to maximum effect.

Fascinating 90-minute tours of a portion of Naples's fabled underground city provide an initiation into the complex history of the city center. Efforts to dramatize the experience—amphoras lowered on ropes to draw water from cisterns, candles given to navigate narrow passages, objects shifted to reveal secret passages—combine with enthusiastic English-speaking guides to make this particularly exciting for older children. Be prepared on the underground tour to go up and down many steps and crouch in very narrow corridors.

Founded in 1807 by Joseph Bonaparte and Prince Joachim Murat as an oasis from hectic Naples, this is one of the largest of all Italian botanical gardens, comprising some 30 acres. Nineteenth-century greenhouses and picturesque paths hold an important collection of tree, shrub, cactus, and floral specimens from all over the world. Next to the Orto Botanico, with a 1,200-foot facade dwarfing Piazza Carlo III, is one of the largest public buildings in Europe, the Albergo dei Poveri, built in the 18th and 19th centuries to house the city's destitute and homeless; it's now awaiting an ambitious restoration scheme. The gardens can be visited on weekday mornings.

Occupying the enormous Palazzo Rocella, PAN, as this arts organization calls itself, mounts temporary art exhibitions and operates a center for art research and documentation. Past exhibits have included the photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin, and internationally recognized contemporary artists working in other media have received shows, but the large space showcases works by up-and-coming talents as well. Film and other events also take place here.

Built in 1738 for the Neapolitan aristocrat Marchese Moscati, this palazzo is famed for its external "hawk-winged staircase," believed to follow the design of star architect Ferdinando Sanfelice and decorated with sumptuous stucco and a bust and panel at the top of each flight. The palace was at one point owned by a Spanish nobleman, Don Tommaso Atienza, thus the name "dello Spagnolo." In the left corner of the courtyard in the back, a nondescript metal door leads to a tunnel running all the way to Piazza Carlo III—another example of the Neapolitan underground. The palace was immortalized in Passione, John Turturro's excellent film about Naples and music.

An often overlooked sight in western Naples, the park is named for the poet Virgil and is reputedly his burial site. Not to be confused with the Parco Virgiliano, at the western end of the Naples suburb of Posillipo, the sign at the park's entrance indicates that not only (by legend) is Virgil's tomb here, but also the tomb-memorial of Giacomo Leopardi, the author of the evocative poem "L'infinito," who died during the 1837 cholera epidemic. As a safety precaution, victims of the disease were usually buried in mass graves, but the writer (and later politician) Antonio Ranieri, a close friend, arranged for this monument, which until 1939 was located elsewhere. From the Mergellina metro station, walk south to Salita della Grotta and turn right just before the church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta; the park's entrance is just before the road tunnel.

Perched 500 feet above the Bay of Naples, this large urban park is worth the trip for its stunning vistas that face the islet Nisida with the formerly industrial area of Bagnoli stretching out below. A raised central area has a sports field where the Naples American Football team often trains.

After spending time as a parking lot, this square was restored in 1994 to one of Napoli Nobilissima's most majestic spaces, with a Doric semicircle of columns resembling St. Peter's Square in Rome. The piazza was erected in the early 1800s under the Napoleonic regime, but after the regime fell, Ferdinand, the new King of the Two Sicilies, ordered the addition of the Church of San Francesco di Paola. On the left as you approach the church is a statue of Ferdinand and on the right one of his father, Charles III, both of them clad in Roman togas. Around dusk, floodlights come on, creating a magical effect. A delightful sea breeze airs the square, and most days one corner becomes an improvised soccer stadium where local youths emulate their heroes.

In the 7th century BC, Pizzofalcone was Naples. The ancient Greeks had settled here because, legend says, the body of the siren Parthenope had washed ashore on the beach at the foot of the Pizzofalcone Hill, then known as Monte Echia. In the 18th century, the hill, mere feet from the bay and the Castel dell'Ovo, became a fashionable address as Naples's wealthy sought to escape the congestion and heat of the city center. The rocky promontory soon became studded with Baroque palaces and Rococo churches. The leading sights these days are the palazzi along Via Monte di Dio—including Palazzo Serra di Cassano—and the churches of La Nunziatella and Santa Maria degli Angeli. As with other parts of Naples, Pizzofalcone harbors both palaces and slums; unlike other parts, it's off-the-beaten path, so make sure to be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Occupying a rather unkempt pedestrianized piazza, this elegant ceremonial gateway is one of Naples's finest landmarks of the Renaissance era. Ferdinand II of Aragon commissioned the Florentine sculptor and architect Giuliano da Maiano to build this white triumphal arch—perhaps in competition with the Arco di Trionfo found on the facade of the city's Castel Nuovo—in the late 15th century. As at Castel Nuovo, this arch is framed by two peperino stone towers, here nicknamed Honor and Virtue, while the statue of Saint Gennaro keeps watch against Mt. Vesuvius in the distance. Across Via Carbonara stands the medieval bulk of the Castel Capuano, once home to Angevin and Aragonese rulers until it was transformed in 1540 by the Spanish viceroy into law courts, a function it fulfilled until just a few years ago. On Sunday this is a meeting place for Naples's extracomunitari (immigrants), who chat in their native tongues—from Ukrainian and Polish to Twi and Igbo.

One of the Centro Storico's largest churches, this Dominican house of worship was originally constructed by Charles I of Anjou in 1238. Legend has it that a painting of the crucifixion spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas when he was at prayer here. Three centuries later a fire destroyed most of this early structure, and in 1850 a neo-Gothic edifice rose in its place, complete with a nave of awe-inspiring dimensions. In the second chapel on the right (if you enter through the north door) are remnants of the earlier church—14th-century frescoes by Pietro Cavallini, a Roman predecessor of Giotto. Note the depiction of Mary Magdalene dressed in her own hair, and, in front, the crucifixion of Andrew as a devil strangles his judge, the Prefect Aegeas, just below. Along the side are some noted funerary monuments, including those of the Carafa family, whose chapel, to the left of Cosimo Fanzago's 17th-century altar, is a beautiful Renaissance-era set-piece. The San Carlo Borromeo chapel features an excellent Baptism of Christ (1564), by Marco Pino, a Michelangelo protégé. Other interesting works are the unusual Madonna di Latte, in the Cappella di S. Maria Maddalena, and a beautiful Madonna by Agostino Tesauro in the Cappella San Giovanni. A Ribera painting in the San Bartolomeo chapel depicts the saint's martyrdom. Near the back of the church, looking like a giant gold peacock's tail, is the so-called Machine of 40 Hours, a devotional device for displaying the sacrament for the 40 hours between Christ's burial and resurrection.

Adjacent to the church is its brilliantly restored Dominican monastery, where Saint Thomas Aquinas studied and taught. Virtual photographs outside the Chapter Hall show how the monastery, parts of which date to the 13th century, would have looked before the suppression of monasteries under Napoleon. The hall itself contains a significant fresco of the Crucifixion by the late 17th-century Sicilian painter Michele Ragolia, and the ubiquitous Baroque master Fanzago is responsible for the stuccowork. Note the false windows, a work of optical illusion common to the period.

The standout work in the nearby Grand Refectory is Domenico Vaccaro's Last Supper mural, in which Christ comforts John while Judas, clutching a moneybag, glares at something else. Another mural in the  Refectory depicts a famous incident from Saint Thomas Aquinas's life here. Christ is shown directing at Thomas the words, Bravo Tommaso che parlasti bene di me. (Well done, Thomas, for speaking well of me.) Visible in the Refectory are the remains of the stations where the monks would wash their hands before eating, but more recently it served as a law court. Two Camorra bosses—Raffaele Cutolo and Pupetta Maresca—were sentenced here as late as the 1990s.

Also of note are the cloisters, originally for about a hundred monks, now less than five remain. It was here that Thomas Aquinas lived and studied and taught from 1272 to 1274. A magnificent doorway by Marco Bottiglieri marks his cell, now a chapel that can be visited as part of the guided tour.

Modeled after Rome's Pantheon, this circular basilica is the centerpiece of the Piazza Plebiscito and remains one of the most frigidly voluptuous examples of the Stile Empire, or Neoclassical style, in Italy. Commissioned by Ferdinand I to fulfill a vow he had made in order to enlist divine aid in being reinstated to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, it rose at one end of the vast parade ground built several years earlier by Joachim Murat. Completed in the late 1840s after 30 years of construction, it managed to transform Murat's inconveniently grandiose colonnade—whose architect was clearly inspired by the colonnades of St. Peter's in Rome—into a setting for restored Bourbon glory. Pietro Bianchi from Lugano in Switzerland won a competition and built a slightly smaller version of the Pantheon, with a beautiful coffered dome and a splendid set of 34 Corinthian columns in gray marble; but the overall lack of color (so different from the warm interior of the Pantheon), combined with the severe geometrical forms, produces an almost defiantly cold space. Art historians find the spectacle of the church to be the ultimate in Neoclassical grandezza (greatness); others think this Roman temple is only suitable to honor Jupiter, not Christ. In any event, the main altar, done in gold, lapis lazuli, and other precious stones by Anselmo Caggiano (1641), was taken from the destroyed Church of the Santi Apostoli and provides some relief from the oppressive perfection of the setting. On a hot summer day, the church's preponderance of marble guarantees sanctuary from the heat outside, with a temperature drop of 10 or more degrees.

Internationally renowned Neapolitan-Dutch street artist Jorit completed this 50-foot mural in September 2015 to honor the feast-day of the city's patron saint on the 19th. Where Spaccanapoli meets Via Duomo, politicized Jorit depicts the martyr wearing a backpack in homage to the immigration crisis and, in a nod to Caravaggio, used the face of a factory-worker friend. Jorit also has murals, including Diego Maradona and Che Guevara, in the Parco dei Murales in San Giovanni di Teduccio, 3 miles to the east, and in Vomero.

An engaging complex of Renaissance architecture and sculpture, this church is named for its location during medieval times near the city trash dump, where refuse was burned and carbonized. The church's history starts in 1339, when the Neapolitan nobleman Gualtiero Galeota donated a few houses and a vegetable garden to Augustinian monks who ministered to the poor neighborhood nearby.

San Giovanni's dramatic piperno-stone staircase, with its double run of elliptical stairs, was modeled after a 1707 design by Ferdinando Sanfelice similar to other organ-curved stairways in Rome, such as the Spanish Steps. Cross the courtyard to the left of the main entrance and enter the rectangular nave. The first thing you see is the monument to the Miroballo family, which is actually a chapel on the opposite wall, finished by Tommaso Malvito and his workshop in 1519 for the Marchese Bracigliano; the magnificent statues in the semicircular arch immediately set the tone for this surprising repository of first-class Renaissance sculpture.

Dominating the skeletal main altar, which has been stripped of its 18th-century Baroque additions, is the 59-foot-tall funerary monument of King Ladislaus and Joan II, finished by Marco and Andrea da Firenze in 1428. A door underneath this monument leads to the Ser Caracciolo del Sole chapel, with its rare and beautiful original majolica pavement. The oldest produced in Italy, from a workshop in Campania, it shows the influence of Arab motifs and glazing technique.

The dating of the circular Caracciolo di Vico chapel, to the left of the altar, is the subject of debate. Usually given as 1517, with the sculptural decor complete by 1557, the design (often attributed to Tommaso Malvito) may go back to 1499 and thus precede the much more famous Tempietto in Rome, by Bramante, which it so resembles. Hanging to the right of the altar is the impressively restored 16th-century Crucifixion by Giorgio Vasari, and in the back chapel, some brightly colored frescoes by an anonymous 16th-century master, as well as an intriguing sculpture of a knight taking a nap in his armor. Because this great church is off the path of tour groups, you can absorb the ordered beauty of the decoration in peace.

Every morning at 7:30 am (and 9:30 on Sunday), the Perpetue Adoratrici (Sacramentine nuns) beautifully sing early mass beneath Francesco de Mura's The Paradise, inside this late-17th-century church. Dressed in immaculate white and red habits, the nuns, at the end of the celebration, prostrate themselves before the altar, which stretches upward with layer after Baroque layer of Dionisio Lazzari's sumptuous gold and marble (1686), topped by the putti and the figures of Hope and Charity by Matteo Bottigliero (1733). Upon entering or exiting, take note of San Giuseppe dei Ruffi's dramatically Baroque facade, designed, as was the interior, by Lazzari, a renowned architect and sculptor. Hearing the nuns sing is a unique, if little known, Naples experience, and well worth rising early for.

This convent is one of the oldest and most important in Naples. Set on Via San Gregorio Armeno, the street lined with Naples's most adorable presepi, the convent is landmarked by a picturesque campanile. The nuns who lived here, often the daughters of Naples' richest families, must have been disappointed with heaven when they arrived—banquets here outrivaled those of the royal court, hallways were lined with paintings, and the church was filled with gilt stucco and semiprecious stones. Described as "a room of Paradise on Earth" by Carlo Celano and designed by Niccolò Tagliacozzi Canale, the church has a highly detailed wooden ceiling, uniquely decorated choir lofts, shimmering organs, illuminated shrines, and important Luca Giordano frescoes of scenes of the life of St. Gregory, whose relics were brought to Naples in the 8th century from Byzantium. The newly restored Baroque fountain with Matteo Bottiglieri's 17th-century Christ and the Samaritan Woman statues is in the center of the convent's cloister (entrance off the small square up the road). You can gain access from here to the nuns' gallery shielded by 18th-century jalousies and see the church from a different perspective, as well as to the Salottino della Badessa—generally not on view, as this is still a working convent—and other areas preserved as magnificent 18th-century interiors.

Like the nearby Santi Apostoli, this church was erected for the Theatin fathers in the late 16th century (from 1524), the period of their order's rapid expansion. This was another instance where Francesco Grimaldi, the (ordained) house architect, erected a church on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, then transformed it into a Christian basilica. Spoils from the temple survive in the present incarnation, especially the two monumental Corinthian columns on the facade. An earthquake knocked down the original facade in 1688, and damage during World War II, coupled with decades of neglect, led to further deterioration that has since been reversed. Two large murals by Francesco Solimena in the sacristy have been restored. In the first, Simon Magus is depicted flying headlong down to Earth as biblical and Neapolitan figures ignore him. Similarly spectacular is the fresco depicting the imminent conversion of Saul: illuminated by a light-projecting cloud, the future Saint Paul tumbles off a horse in the picture's center. The richly decorated Santuario di San Gaetano is below the church, housing Saint San Gaetano's remains.

On the site of Naples's oldest church, it contains an altar where Saint Peter supposedly preached while in Naples. Enter by the side door on Corso Umberto I, and you'll find the altar in the vestibule at the back, along with a 16th-century fresco depicting the preaching scene. The church also houses two canvases by Luca Giordano. Descend into the labyrinthine crypt on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings, where the first Christian community in Europe was founded and the first six saints of Naples are buried.

Erected in the 16th century atop a previous church, this building has evolved many times—from the church of San Severo into a private palace, a monastery later suppressed by Napoleon, a state archive, a World War II bomb shelter, and an earthquake-damaged relic—before a long and painstaking renovation restored its luster. To the right of the nave, high above a door, rests the tomb of Charles V's general—and original church benefactor—Giovanni Bisvallo. In addition to its aesthetic highlights, the complex also provides a telling lesson on mortality. Aboveground one can view the grandeur of monuments to the dead. Less grandly, a brief excursion downstairs reveals the scolatoi; these are draining holes where the recently deceased, seated upright and left to be drained of bodily fluids, were visited daily by Dominican monks seeking to reinforce their sense of the fragility of human existence.

Amid this church's graceful interior is the earliest evidence of the Renaissance in Naples: the funerary monument (1426–27) of Sant'Angelo's builder, Cardinal Brancaccio, sculpted by the famous Donatello and the almost-as-famous Michelozzo. The front of the sarcophagus bears Donatello's contribution, a bas-relief Assumption of the Virgin; upheld by angels, the Virgin seeming to float in air. Built in the late 1300s, the church was redesigned in the 16th century by Arcangelo Guglielmelli.

The Lucchesi fathers built this church around 1640 in honor of the Swedish queen and saint who visited her fellow queen, Naples's unsaintly Giovanna I, in 1372 and became one of the first people to publicly denounce the loose morals and overt sensuality of the Neapolitans. The height of the church's dome was limited to prevent its interfering with cannon fire from nearby Castel Nuovo, but Luca Giordano, the pioneer painter of the trompe-l'oeil Baroque dome, effectively opened it up with a spacious sky serving as the setting for an Apotheosis of Saint Bridget (1678), painted (and restored in 2018) in exchange for his tomb space, marked by a pavement inscription in the left transept. Don't miss the sacristy with its ceiling fresco from the Giordano school.

With museum-worthy paintings and sculptures on display, this church is a must-see of Naples. The Formiello in the name refers to the formali, the nearby underground aqueduct, which, according to history, the Aragonese also used to capture the town. The church and its dark piperno stone was designed for the Dominicans by the Tuscan architect Romolo Balsimelli, a student of Brunelleschi.

The side chapels are as interesting for their relics as they are for their art. In the Orsini chapel, are the elaborately framed remains of St. Vincent Martyr and other Dominican saints, while the fourth chapel displays some 20 skulls of the martyrs of Otranto, brought to Naples by King Alfonso in 1490 after the Ottoman sack of Otranto in 1480, when 813 Christians were executed for refusing to renounce their faith. This event is in the rather surrealistic altar painting of the beheading of Antonio Primaldo, whose decapitated body, through the strength of faith, stands upright to confound his Ottoman executioner.

In the fifth chapel, a cycle of paintings by Giacomo del Po depicts the life and afterlife of St. Catherine, while in the vault Luigi Garzi depicts the same saint in glory. Up in the faded dome painted by Paolo di Mattei, Catherine, together with the Madonna, implores the Trinity to watch over the city.

In 1590 the princess of Sulmona, Costanza Doria del Carretto, donated the land not far from her palace on Pizzofalcone to the Theatine order, who built a small church. It was enlarged in the 17th century with lively vault and dome frescoes by Giovanni Beinaschi of Turin, better known as a painter of genre scenes. There are some good paintings by Luca Giordano and Massimo Stanzione tucked away in the smaller side chapels and oratory.

This Baroque church in a basic Latin-cross style with a single nave shares the piazza with a contemporary art school in a typically anarchic Neapolitan mix. The church, designed by the architect Francesco Grimaldi for the Theatin fathers and erected between 1610 and 1649, replaced a previous church, itself constructed on the remains of a temple probably dedicated to Mercury. Santi Apostoli is worth a quick peek for its coherent, intact Baroque decorative scheme. Excellent paintings (circa 1644) by Giovanni Lanfranco each narrate a different martyrdom, and there are works by his successors, Francesco Solimena and Luca Giordano. An altar in the left transept by Francesco Borromini is the only work in Naples by this noted architect whose freedom from formality so inspired the exuberance of the Baroque.

Out of all the Italian opera houses, La Scala in Milan is the most famous, but San Carlo is more beautiful, and Naples is, after all, the most operatic of cities. The neoclassical structure, designed by Antonio Niccolini, was built in a mere nine months after an 1816 fire destroyed the original. Many operas were composed for the house, including Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini's La Donna del Lago. In the theater, nearly 200 boxes are arranged on six levels, and the 12,000-square-foot stage permits large-scale productions.

This piece is by controversial street artist Banksy. Located on the wall of the birthplace of 17th-century philosopher Giambattista Vico, a stencilled La Madonna con la Pistola sits beside a religious shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Sooner or later you'll wind up at one of the busiest commercial arteries, also known as Via Roma, which is thankfully closed to through traffic—at least along the stretch leading from the Palazzo Reale. Don't avoid dipping into this parade of shops and coffee bars where plump pastries are temptingly arranged.

Now a chiefly residential neighborhood, the Vomero Hill was once the patrician address of many of Naples's most extravagant estates. La Floridiana is the sole surviving 19th-century example, built in 1817 on order of Ferdinand IV for Lucia Migliaccio, duchess of Floridia—their portraits hang in a room to the left of the villa's main entrance. Only nine shocking months after his first wife, the Habsburg Maria Carolina, died, Ferdinand secretly married Lucia, his longtime mistress, when the court was still in mourning. Scandal ensued, but the king and his new wife were too happy to worry, escaping high above the city to this elegant little estate. Immersed in a delightful park done in the English style by Degenhardt (also responsible for the park in Capodimonte), the villa was designed by architect Antonio Niccolini in the Neoclassical style. It now houses the Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina, a museum devoted to the decorative arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Countless cases on three floors display what Edith Wharton described as "all those fragile and elaborate trifles the irony of fate preserves when brick and marble crumble": Sèvres, Limoges, and Meissen porcelains, gold watches, ivory fans, glassware, enamels, majolica vases, as well as one of the most significant collections of Oriental antiquities in Italy. Sadly, there are no period rooms left to see.