Every design for Maddaloni

Where else would a school hall have the largest canvas painting in the world on its ceiling? In Maddaloni it is simply part of the Convitto Nazionale Giordano Bruno, the oldest public secondary school in the province of Caserta, set up in a former Franciscan convent.

For generations of pupils that hall is a memory in itself, and the town around it holds plenty more: the Gothic church of Santa Margherita with its frescoes, the painted wooden ceiling of the Annunziata, the old palace of the Carafa dukes, now the ex Palazzo Ducale. The Museo Archeologico di Calatia keeps the tombs of the ancient city on whose ground the town grew, and a short way east the Ponte della Valle carries Vanvitelli's aqueduct across the valley on three tiers of arches. Neapolitan song lovers know the name of Giulietta Sacco, who was born and lived here.

And above it all, the towers of the Castello Normanno crown the hill — the outline every Maddalonese can pick out from the plain, and the one most worth wearing.