The monumental complex of Santa Chiara

In the heart of the historic center of Naples, parallel to the road that leads to the famous San Biagio dei Librai, stands the monumental complex of Santa Chiara. Built in the XIV century at the behest of Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancia of Majorca. The Franciscan complex has two convents: one built for the Franciscan friars, the other for the Poor Clares. The church has a Gothic-Baroque style, also due to the works made in 1700 by the architect Vaccaro. During the Second World War the church was almost entirely destroyed by aerial bombardment. For this reason it was rebuilt and restored in the original Gothic style. Among the most significant transformations over time, there is certainly the one that has created the same Vaccaro, going to create two avenues that crossing each other have divided the garden into four sectors. These sectors are flanked by pillars covered with majolica and seventeenth-century walls depicting saints and figures of the Old Testament. Finally inside the structure you can admire the museum containing many treasures escaped from the bombings of 1943 and a traditional crib with shepherds of past centuries.

Where is: Via Santa Chiara, 49/C

Hours 9:30/17:30

E Mulignane a pullastiello: short curiosity of the Neapolitan tradition

The stuffed eggplant, better known by the name of mulignanane alla pullastiello, can be considered both an appetizer and a typical second course of the Neapolitan tradition. According to many, the name derives from the way the eggplants were stuffed and are still prepared: in fact, after being cut and stuffed with eggs, provola cheese, parmesan cheese, pecorino cheese, and ham, the eggplants are rolled up and then fried, just the filling then would remember the way to prepare the stuffed chicken, hence the name "pullastiell". As tradition dictates, the melenzane on the tables of the family can never miss, for this the mulignana a pullastiello together with the parmigiana of melenzane, are considered a must have for Sunday lunches and not only.

INGREDIENTS FOR 4 PEOPLE

• 3 eggplants ( 300 gr, medium/ large)

• 250 gr provola ( or other ex: caciocavallo)

• 100 grams of ham cut into slices

• extra virgin olive oil

• 2 large eggs

• flour

• seed oil (necessary for frying)

• flour 00 q.b.

PROCEEDING

Wash and cut the eggplants into slices not very thin. Dip them in plenty of oil to fry and pour them on a paper towel.

Fill the eggplant with slices of provola cheese and raw ham and then cover them with a second slice of eggplant.

Put them in flour and egg and then fry them again. Lift them and put them again on a paper towel.

Your mills at the Pullastiello are ready to be eaten!! BUON APPETITO

The Underground Neapolis: history of an ancient Greco-Roman settlement

In what is now Piazza San Gaetano, below the current complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore, are the archaeological excavations of the ancient Neapolis.

Considered one of the oldest and most fascinating places in Naples, in this area there is the Roman forum, which coincided with the agora (square) of the Greek city. In the third century BC the Greeks opened the first underground quarries to obtain the blocks of tuff needed to build the walls and temples of the then Neapolis. The development of the entire underground network dates back to Roman times, which in the Augustan period provided the city with road tunnels and above all a complex network of aqueducts, fed by underground ducts from the springs of Serino, 70 km away from the center of Naples. A pivotal place for the life of the city, in the true sense of the word: it is here that the cardo (ancient Greek stenopos) and the greater decumanus of the Roman Naples intersect. It was here that the tuff cisterns were born, as mentioned, to build the city and then reused by the Romans to collect rainwater and reuse it as aqueducts. System that lasted until '600, where the sewage system dried up. Only in 1885, after a terrible cholera epidemic, was the old water distribution system abandoned, thanks to the construction of a new aqueduct. During the Second World War the underground was used as a shelter from bombing and from there followed a long period of degradation in which the subsoil was used as a landfill. It is from the 80s onwards that the place begins to resume its own dignity, until it becomes a real place of rediscovery of ancient Naples, rich in history and stories to discover.

Directions: The underground Naples can also be reached on foot from the historic center, the entrance is in the heart of Naples, in the left corner of Piazza San Gaetano n 68 coming from Via Duomo or San Gregorio Armeno.