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Embodying the heart of the Neapolitan character, this actor made international waves with Il Postino (The Postman) , nominated for an Academy Award in 1995. Sadly, after the film was completed, Troisi died at the age of 41.

Opened in 1779, this historic theatre hosts productions touring Italy, some of them quite off-beat.

One of the world’s most important museums of ancient art houses some of the most famous statues from the Greco-Roman past, such as the Callipygean Venus that set standards of physical beauty that have endured through the ages. Other monumental marble works include the Farnese Hercules, but the collections also feature bronzes, mosaics, frescoes, carved semiprecious stone, glassware, Greek vases, Egyptian artifacts, and much more (see Museo Archeologico Nazionale).

The area’s archaeological museum contains a reassembled sacellum (shrine) featuring statues of several emperors. There’s also a reconstruction of a nymphaeum (fountain), the original of which still lies under 6 m (20 ft) of water. Its statues have been raised, however, and illustrate the story of how Ulysses and his men escaped from the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Since 1927 this former villa of a king’s morganatic wife has been home to a prestigious collection of European and Oriental decorative art. Of the 6,000 objects, highlights are Hispano-Moorish lustreware, Italian majolica tiles, Limoges porcelain and 18th-century Oriental porcelain (see Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina, Naples).

Greats of the golden age of Italian cinema all felt inspired to communicate their impressions of Naples. Notable films include Roberto Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia (1953) and Francesco Rossi’s Mani Sulla Città (1963).

On 21 October 1860 Naples voted to join a united Italy, under the rulership of an Italian king, Vittorio Emanuele II – Garibaldi had entered the city two months previously to gather up support.

This tour’s entrance is next to San Paolo Maggiore and takes you into a world of excavations that date back to the 4th century BC. The digging began when the Greeks quarried large tufa blocks to build the city of Neapolis. Caves were also dug here to be used as tombs. Centuries later the Romans turned this underground area into aqueducts and cisterns, which were in use until the cholera epidemic of 1884.

Naples has always been known as a city of music, with songs focusing nostalgically on love, the sun and the sea. O’ Sole Mio and Santa Lucia are the most renowned. Of the top musicians, Pino Daniele has gained the greatest fame outside Italy.