Area archeologica di Fratte
Salerno (SA)
Hidden gemHistory & archaeology
The story
At the gates of Salerno, on the hill of Fratte, an Etruscan-Samnite settlement with its necropolis tells of the city that preceded the medieval port by centuries.
More gems in Salerno
Nature & hikingGiardino della Minerva
Salerno
Terraces of medicinal plants step down towards the gulf: a garden of simples tied to the Scuola Medica Salernitana, where medieval herbalism still breathes among pergolas and fountains.
CastlesCastello di Arechi
Salerno
Perched on the Bonadies hill, it has watched over the gulf of Salerno for more than a thousand years: Lombard stone, crenellated towers and the sea stretching to the Costiera Amalfitana on the horizon.
- Sacred art
Duomo di San Matteo e cripta
Salerno
Beneath the Norman naves rest the relics of the evangelist Matthew, in a baroque crypt of marble and mirrors where the half-light turns to gold.
- History & archaeology
Acquedotto Medievale ("Ponti del Diavolo")
Salerno
Pointed arches stride across the valley in the old heart of Salerno: legend says the devil raised them in a single night.
- Street art
Rione Fornelle — Muri d'Autore
Salerno (SA)
In the ancient heart of Salerno the Fornelle quarter has been reborn with 'Muri d'Autore': verses by Alfonso Gatto and other poets turned into murals, where the street reads like a page.
- Street art
Murale di Trotula de Ruggiero di Jorit
Salerno (SA)
Along the wall of a car park in via Vinciprova, Jorit devotes an immense face to Trotula de Ruggiero, the woman doctor of the Scuola Salernitana who treated women a thousand years ago.
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.