5 Best Sights in Naples, Italy

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 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.

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.

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.

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.