Every design for Marano Di Napoli

Which town north-west of Naples sits half on the Camaldoli hill? Marano di Napoli, built partly on that slope, on young volcanic ground formed in the last of the Phlegraean periods, takes its name, perhaps, from an Oscan word for water rushing down, after the rainwater that once poured off the hill of San Rocco.

There is a sense here of very old ground beneath everyday streets. People were already settled along the Marano-San Rocco route in the Neolithic; in Roman times the area lay on the road between Pozzuoli and Capua, and the Ciaurro, the great Roman mausoleum, is still the most important funerary monument in Campania. Frederick II kept a hunting lodge at Monteleone, and when Charles I of Anjou rebuilt it, the families he settled around it founded the hamlet of San Rocco. Three Oscan-Samnite roads, Cupa dei Cani, Pendine and Cupa Orlando, can still be walked today.

If you grew up between the Parco Cupa Spinelli and the Villa comunale del Ciaurro, you know this hillside by heart. Take it with you wherever you go.