Imagine the circular forts on a chessboard magnified by a thousand times, standing before you in an armor of mossy rock and resplendent grandeur. Separating these towers are walls of inlaid carvings and beveled edges, elaborate arches and windows visible from the ground. With regal pomp, Castel Nuovo continues to lounge on its seat of royalty on a bluff above the port and the bobbing sea-craft, unchallenged in the way it dominates the landscape.

The Maschio Angioino, as it is known to the locals, might have begun as a Roman Castle from the 13th Century but that portion of its past is little more than rubble and rock beneath the glass floors of the Armory Hall today. The meager light entering the halls of Palatine Chapel pick out the faded shades of red and ochre shaded in by painters such as Giotto to depict epic scenes from the bible. These frescoes once served as currency, earning such painters a few days of hosting at the royal residence and yet even these could not secure their stay at the onslaught of the Aragonese from Spain. Polished marble of the Torra del Guardia at the very entrance announce the success of the Aragonese. With ribbed, vaulted ceilings to mark an oppressive slaughter alongside landscape paintings that serve to teleport, Castel Nuovo is an archive of history and a catalogue of artistic excellence hanging off the edge of Naples.