Villa Rufolo
Ravello
FamousHistory & archaeology
The story
The gardens that inspired Wagner's magic garden of Klingsor; in summer the stage hanging over the gulf turns music into a window on the sea.
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More gems in Ravello
Sacred artVilla Cimbrone — Terrazza dell'Infinito
Ravello
A balcony of marble busts suspended over the gulf, where the gaze meets nothing at all: Gore Vidal called it the most beautiful view in the world.
- History & archaeology
Auditorium Niemeyer
Ravello
A white wave of concrete with a single eye flung wide open on the coast: Oscar Niemeyer's Mediterranean vision, curved and foreign among the stones of Ravello.
Sacred artDuomo di Ravello
Ravello (SA)
A pulpit borne by lions and clad in golden mosaics, the bronze door and the silence of a piazza suspended above the Costiera.
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.