Naples

A city built over the ruins of Greek Neapolis, rich in layered history and intellectual ferment. Giordano Bruno studied here as a young monk; Vico was born here and rarely left. Both saw the universe as larger than Rome expected.

Naples was the largest city in Italy and among the most crowded in Europe, governed from Spain and full of lawyers, clerics, and nobles with nothing to do. Bruno entered a Dominican convent there at seventeen and was reading forbidden books within a few years. Vico was born in the city in 1668, taught rhetoric at the university on a small salary for his whole life, and published the New Science into near silence. At his funeral the professors and the confraternity quarrelled over who should carry the coffin.