Off the Beaten Track

Monteoliveto (Sant'Anna dei Lombardi)
Piazza Monteoliveto 3
A treasure trove of Renaissance sculpture. During the later 15^th century the Aragonese nobility commissioned a series of works that rival anything in central Italy. Best of all are the altarpieces by the Florentine sculptors Antonio Rossellino and Benedetto da Maiano at the foot of the left aisle, and the wonderfully realistic terracotta group of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by the Ferrarese Guido Mazzoni to the right of the presbytery. 

Cumae
Perhaps the most evocative classical site in the Campania, greatly enhanced by the almost total absence of tourists (apart from Bellini Travel subscribers). You can vividly imagine Aeneas' visit to the Cumaean Sibyl in her underground grotto, one of the most famous scenes in Virgil, as you walk down the dark, tufa corridor. The Temple of Jupiter, on the highest point of the site, affords a wonderful view over the sea to the island of Ischia, from where the Greeks originally came to Cumae in the 8^th century BC, their first landing point on mainland Italy.

Cloister of San Gregorio Armeno
A haven of peace in the centre of Spaccanapoli. The statues of Christ and the Woman of Samaria (1733), standing by the fountain among the orange trees, are among the most charming in Naples. Quite a contrast with the ornate, Baroque interior of the church.