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In 1992 the Mani pulite (“clean hands”) movement transformed Italian politics and a new generation of leaders came to the fore. Naples’ mayor Antonio Bassolino, elected in 1993, began restoration projects, new parks and better public transport that have changed the face of the city.

One of the most significant periods of the two centuries of Spanish viceroys occurred under Emperor Charles V (1516–56), who sent Pedro de Toledo to govern Naples for more than 20 years. The infrastructure, both materially and politically, was strengthened and embellished.

This consummate painter of the Venetian Renaissance (c.1490–1576) is represented in Naples by several works, all but one in the Capodimonte Museum. These include his sensuous masterpiece Danaë , and the religious works La Madda-lena and Annunciazione .

What is known as Virgil’s tomb is a Roman burial vault that dates back to the Augustan age. It is a typical columbarium , the “dove-cote” style of burial, with niches for urns containing the ashes of the deceased. The Romans later took to burying their dead in sarcophagi (coffins), as the fashion changed to belief in an afterlife, perhaps adopted from the Egyptians. Next to the tomb are a tufa quarry and a crypta (tunnel), built as an underground road in the 1st century.

This fisherman led a revolt in 1647 against the taxation policies of the Spanish rulers.

An epic poet and a native of Sorrento (1544–95).

Few places present such a stark contrast to the visitor as this one. The contemporary squalor of uncontrolled urban blight hides, within its depressed grime, imperial splendours of the ancient world. The town is infamous these days for its crime and poverty, yet just two blocks from the train station lie the beautifully preserved ruins of one of the most sumptuous villas to have been preserved by Vesuvius’s eruption (see Herculaneum, Oplontis & Stabiae).

This town has been home to coral artisans and cameo manufacturers for centuries, a craft that continues to draw admirers today. Yet its rough streets are among the area’s worst for violent crime and, to add to the tension, it lies in the direct line of fire from Vesuvius, last suffering destruction in 1794.

For many, this rubber-faced comedian was the quintessence of Italian humour. Until his death in 1967, “The Prince of Laughter” made five films a year, some of them comic masterpieces. One of his most successful was Un Turco Napoletano (A Neapolitan Turk, 1953).