Showing 1-19 of 19 results
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Accademia di Belle Arti
Buzzing with brush-clutching art students, this academy was once the convent of San Giovanni Battista delle Monache. Built in the 17th-century, it was given a thorough makeover in 1864 by architect Enrico Alvino, who gave the building a neoclassical facade, grand staircase, and two noble lions to guard the main entrance. The first-floor gallery houses an important collection of mainly 19th-century Neapolitan work.
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Cappella e Museo del Monte di Pietà
An imposing 16th-century complex, the Cappella e Museo del Monte di Pietà was originally home to the Pio Monte di Pietà, an organisation set up to issue interest-free loans to impoverished debtors. Ironically, it now houses sumptuous paintings, embroidery and silverware belonging to the Banco di Napoli (Bank of Naples). Most impressive, however, is the perfectly preserved mannerist chapel and its four richly decorated side rooms.
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Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino)
Known to locals as the Maschio Angioino and to everyone else as the Castel Nuovo, this imposing 13th-century castle is one of Naples' most striking buildings.
Christened the Castrum Novum (New Castle) to distinguish it from the older Castel dell'Ovo and Castel Capuano, it was erected in three years from 1279. A royal residence, it was a popular hang-out for the leading intellectuals and artists of the day, such as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Giotto.
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Centro Musei Scienze Naturali
Housed at the university, this fascinating natural science centre features four museums. The Museo della Mineralogia, one of Italy's most important, features some 30,000 minerals, meteorites and quartz crystals collected from as far afield as Madagascar.
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Certosa di San Martino
The Certosa di San Martino and its Museo Nazionale di San Martino are, in a word, unmissable. Barely 100m from the castle, this former Carthusian monastery houses one of the city's richest collections of Neapolitan art and history, wisely collected by its resident monks. From precious frescoes and sculpture to vintage presepi (nativity scenes) and pumpkin-style carriages, the museum is a crash course in Neapolitan art and soul.
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Chiesa E Scavi Di San Lorenzo Maggiore
Soaring, vast and bathed in light, this French Gothic masterpiece was commenced in 1270 by French architects who built the apse. Local architects took over the following century, recycling ancient columns in the nave. Victim of a baroque makeover in the 17th- and 18th centuries, it was stripped back to its original Gothic splendour in the mid-20th century, although a concession was made for Ferdinando Sanfelice's petite baroque facade.
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Città della Scienza
Part of a major redevelopment of the Bagnoli steelworks area, this huge, high-tech museum takes the 'geek' out of science. Get clued up on physics at the science gym, walk through constellations in the high-tech planetarium or just go plain silly pressing lots of funky buttons.
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Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei
Packed with ancient local booty, this is where you'll find the bewitching Nymphaeum, dredged up from underwater Baiae and skilfully reassembled. Monuments consecrated to the nymphs, nymphaeums , were a popular spot to the tie the proverbial knot. Other finds include a bronze equestrian statue of the Emperor Domitian (altered to resemble his more popular successor Nerva upon his deposition) and recent finds from Rione Terra.
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Museo Archeologico Nazionale
Even if the idea of an archaeology museum usually sends you to sleep, this place will amaze you. With many of the best finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum on display, as well as hundreds of classical sculptures and a trove of ancient Roman porn, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale is world museum heavyweight. You could easily spend a couple of days exploring the museum, although it is possible to do an abridged tour in a morning.
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Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro
The city's love affair with San Gennaro is well documented at this savvy museum at the Duomo's southern end. Two floors glimmer with precious ex voto gifts made to the saint, from bronze busts and sumptuous paintings to silver ampullas and a gilded 18th-century sedan chair used to shelter the saint's bust on rainy procession days. Included in the price of the ticket is a multilingual audioguide.
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Museo Pignatelli
In the early 19th century, Naples was gripped by classical fever. If it was Doric or Ionic, it was in . So when Ferdinand Acton, a minister at the court of King Ferdinand IV (1759-1825), asked Pietro Valente to design Villa Pignatelli in 1826, Valente whipped up this striking Pompeiian lookalike, complete with English garden.
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Osservatorio di Capodimonte
Overcast skies never faze the crew at Italy's oldest observatory - they simply look earthward for some of the best sea and skyline views in town. Perched high above the city, this elegant neoclassical number was founded by King Ferdinand I of Bourbon in 1819 and built according to the designs of astronomers Giuseppe Piazzai and Federico Zuccari. The in-house museum features an interesting collection of astronomical instruments.
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Palazzo Reale
Former downtown royal pad, this large palace was built around 1600. Envisaged as a monument to Spanish glory (Naples was under Spanish rule at the time), it was designed by local architect Domenico Fontana and completed two long centuries later in 1841.
A double staircase leads to the royal apartments which house the Museo del Palazzo Reale, a rich and eclectic collection of baroque and neoclassical furnishings, porcelain, statues and paintings.
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Palazzo Reale di Capodimonte
Believe it or not, this colossal peachy pad was meant to be a hunting lodge. At least that's what Charles VII of Bourbon had asked for when construction began in 1738. But it seems that size really did matter to the king, whose plans for the place kept getting grander and grander. By 1759, the city had a new palace. Just as well, really, for when Charles inherited his mother Elisabetta Farnese's hefty art collection, space was at a premium.
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Palazzo Spinelli di Laurino
Dodge past the porter patrolling the entrance to this Renaissance palazzo and you'll find an unusual oval-shaped courtyard. This, together with the imposing double staircase, was the work of architect Ferdinando Sanfelice, whose hallmark staircase design was a must-have for 18th-century Neapolitan nobility.
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Pan (Palazzo delle Arti Napoli)
One of the city's two new hotbeds of contemporary art - the other being MADRE - PAN is the brainchild of European art curator and critic Lóránd Hegyi. Three slick white minimalist floors host innovative exhibitions, spanning everything from painting, photography and sculpture to multimedia, design and architecture. Housed in a pink 16th-century palace, PAN also boasts an experimental art lab, multimedia library, archive and slick cafe-bookshop.
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Pio Monte della Misericordia
Caravaggio's masterpiece Le Sette Opere di Misericordia (The Seven Acts of Mercy) is considered by many to be the single most important painting in Naples. And it's here that you'll see it, hung above the main altar of this small octagonal church. A disturbing image, it depicts two angels reaching down towards a group of shadowy Neapolitan characters, while on the right a hungry grey-bearded man is breast-fed by a young woman.
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Raccolta de Mura
Hidden among the chairs of the Bar del Professore is an entrance to an underpass, which leads to one of the city's best-kept secrets - a tiny gallery dedicated to Neapolitan song and dance. Hanging on its pink-tiled walls is a fetching collection of old music-hall programmes and posters, vintage photos and models of Punchinello (Naples' original version of Mr Punch). Stereo speakers provide a suitable background of warbling Neapolitan crooners.
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Villa Floridiana & Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina
Not one for understated gift giving, King Ferdinand I had the elegant Villa Floridiana and its stately gardens built for his second wife, the Duchess of Floridia. Purchased by the Italian government in 1919, the gardens were opened to the public and the villa turned into a ceramics museum. In a city short on space, the park is a soothing tonic of oaks, palms and terraces looking out over city and sea.
Read more about Villa Floridiana & Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina
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