Anfiteatro Campano
Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
FamousHistory & archaeology
The story
Second in size only to the Colosseum, the arena where Spartacus trained still holds the underground corridors from which gladiators and beasts rose toward the light.
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More gems in Santa Maria Capua Vetere
History & archaeologyMuseo Archeologico dell'Antica Capua
Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
A stone's throw from Spartacus's gladiator amphitheatre, the museum gathers the centuries of Etruscan and Roman Capua, from the statues of mothers to the Campanian horsemen.
History & archaeologyArco di Adriano (Arco Campano)
Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
Of three arches only two survive, mutilated, in the middle of a modern crossroads: this was the triumphal gate through which the Appia entered the second city of the empire. Today the brick piers stare at the traffic lights.
More gems: History & archaeology
History & archaeologyStatua del Nilo ("Corpo di Napoli")
Largo Corpo di Napoli
A river god reclining for centuries in a quiet square, whom Neapolitans call the Corpo di Napoli: he leans his bearded head among putti and a sphinx.
History & archaeologyCappella Pontano
Decumani
A small Renaissance temple on the decumanus, which the humanist Pontano had raised for his lost wife, still lined inside with Latin inscriptions dictated by his grief.
- History & archaeology
Sedile di Nilo
Decumani
On the corner of a small Spaccanapoli square survives the seat of the old Nilo quarter, where the nobles once gathered before the sedili of Naples vanished.
History & archaeologyPort'Alba
Napoli
A seventeenth-century arch cut into the walls leads to the booksellers' street, where stalls of second-hand volumes pile up among yellowed pages and the shade of the old city.
History & archaeologyPorta Capuana
zona Garibaldi
Between two cylindrical towers an arch of white marble opens like a Renaissance triumph, the old city gate facing the road to Capua.
- History & archaeology
MANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale
P.za Museo
One of the world's great archaeological museums: here the Toro Farnese, the mosaics of Pompeii and the Gabinetto Segreto tell the whole ancient Mediterranean in a single visit.