"Naples - home of the pizza" a Naples Travel Page by Willettsworld

Naples is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of the Campania Region. The city has a population of about 1 million, and together with its suburbs, the metropolitan area has 3.7 million inhabitants known as Neapolitans. It is located just halfway between the Vesuvius volcano and another unrelated volcanic area, the Campi Flegrei. It is rich in historical, artistic and cultural traditions and gastronomy - Naples is by tradition the home of pizza, specifically it is the birthplace of the Pizza Margherita, which traditionally is made with mozzarella, pomodoro (tomato) and basilico (basil) - representing the red, white, and green of the Italian flag. The pizza was created as homage to Queen Margherita on a vist to the city.

Naples population today is a mixture of different nationalities and cultures that can trace their roots to other Mediteranean, Middle Eastern and North African countries. Naples is a chaotic yet spectacular metropolis that sprawls noisily and dirtily around the edge of the beautiful Bay of Naples. For centuries it has dominated the Italian south - the Mezzogiorno, or land of the midday sun.

History:

The city was founded by inhabitants of the Greek colony of Cuma, around the eighth century BC. For this reason it was named Neapolis (from Greek, meaning New City). Its buildings, museums and even the language spoken by natives bear traces of all periods of its history, from its Greek birth, until the present day. Although conquered by the Romans in the 4th century BC, it long retained its Greek culture.

It was in Naples, in the 'Castel dell'Ovo' (Castle of the Egg), that Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was imprisoned after being deposed in 476 AD. In the sixth century, Naples was conquered by the Byzantines during the attempt of Justinian I to recreate the Roman Empire, and was one of the last duchies to fall in Norman hands in 1039, as they founded the Kingdom of Sicily.

Frederick II Hohenstaufen founded its university in 1224. In 1266 Naples and the kingdom of Sicily were assigned by Pope Clement IV to Charles of Anjou, who moved the capital from Palermo to Naples. In 1284 the kingdom was split in two parts, with an Aragonese king ruling the island of Sicily and the Angevin king ruling the mainland portion; while both kingdoms officially called themselves the Kingdom of Sicily, the mainland portion was commonly referred to as the Kingdom of Naples. This kingdom was much larger than just the city; it covered about the southern third of the boot of the Italian peninsula.

The two parts would stay separate until 1816, when they would form the kingdom of Two Sicilies. The two kingdoms were united under Spanish rule in 1501, until 1715, when Naples became Austrian until 1734. Under the enlightened Bourbon monarch Charles, king of both Sicilies (Utriusque Siciliarum) (later known as Charles III of Spain), gained independence. In 1799, a Jacobin revolution (backed by the French Army) gave birth to a short-lived republic (January - June 1799).

In 1861, the kingdom was conquered by the Garibaldines and was handed over to the king of Sardinia. In October 1860 a plebiscite sanctioned the end of the kingdom of Sicily and the birth of the state of Italy.