Arco di Adriano (Arco Campano)
Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
Hidden gemHistory & archaeology
The story
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.
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More gems in Santa Maria Capua Vetere
History & archaeologyAnfiteatro Campano
Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
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.
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.
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.