Apartments in Florence, Perugia, Rome, Sorrento and Positano

About NAPLES

The first inhabitants of Naples flowed into the bay about the 8th century before Christ, when the coast of lower Italy began to be colonised by the Greeks. Naples was the last gem on the way that began on the shores of the Ionian sea, through the various stages that were known as Sibari, Crotone, Velia, Paestum, constituting ‘Magna Graecia’. Aenas’ ship stopped near Naples, before reaching Lazio. It entered the Bay at Capo Miseno, where the ship’s trumpeter fell into the sea, and from that time the promontory has been called after him. Ulysses, too, crossed the Bay, having himse1f bound to the mast of his ship so as not to surrender to the seductive perils of the Sirens. At Naples, the last outpost of Greece, Mediterranean civilisation finished, and here the travellers said their last goodbye to elegance and poetry before pushing on into wild and wooded Italy, not yet illuminated by Rome. For centuries the South meant the Bay of Naples. Even when the Romans (assaulted and took the City, they respected the liberty of Neopolis; so atracted were they by the fascination of its culture and Greek way of life. Later it became a Roman city. Silla then destroyed it in 82 B.C. to punish the Neapolitans for having favoured his rival Marius, and it became a colony. But the Romans, from their sealess city, always delighted in the gentle land which legend reported had been the dwelling place of the Siren Partenope (one of the poetic names for Naples), and here they built their villas, from Pollion to Lucullo, from Virgil to Satzio, and here they chose to stay, beginning with Nero, who even presented himself as a poet in the great Neapoliton theatre whose ruins can still be found. From that time Naples played an important dual role of commercial centre and resort. In the old port — the sea reached as far as where the University now stands — and in the nearby port of Pozzuoli, ships arrived laden with purple, spices, treasured woods, marbles of Asia and Africa; and many of these precious materials, before reaching Rome, were diverted to Pompeii, which lay but a few miles from Naples, and had become the elegant and sophisticated city of the Empire.   Christianity also left its mark in this land. Saint Peter passed through Naples on his way to found the Church of Rome, and Bishop Gennaro, now the patron Saint of the City, was martyred there, leaving an inheritance that is dear to Neapolitans: two ampules of his blood, gathered by a devoted disciple, and each year on the anniversary of the Saint’s death, the blood liquifies and be- comes red, as if just spilt. Of the following period, noted for its independence and dignity of life, we have little in the way of documentation. Longobard Naples had a glorious history; it was autonomous and won many battles to preserve its independence. While the Roman Empire fell, the ancient city took on a new lease of life, which lasted until 1139, when it became part of the Norman kingdom. But soon Naples was the heart of the new kingdom even if its official capital was Palermo. With the Swabian conquest this cultural and spiritual pre-eminence was accentuated. And when the unfortunate King Manfred was killed at Benevento, and his successor beheaded in the market square by Charles of Anjou, Naples once more became the capital of the realm.