Napoli, la città antica-Ancient city of Naples

The origins of the city, the way it developed over the centuries, the way the actual structural layout has remained unchanged so that we can still appreciate what a carefully-constructed, harmonious whole the city was, with its public buildings, defensive structures and incredible archaeological layering with new buildings built on top of the old from the Middle Ages onwards, and the collection of residential buildings, churches and convents demonstrate the monumental magnificence of the area.
The Ancient City of Naples was ruined by the wealthy nobles who replaced the older standing structures with huge and often ugly buildings without any specific design, by the church that transformed whole blocks of the founding city into massive convents and monasteries and by the traders and shopkeepers who expropriated public land. It is characterised by chaos and congestion due to the dramatic growth of construction down the years with alarming high-rise constructions on the one hand and great holes ripped out on the other, all motivated by slum clearance and measures to ease traffic flow. Reconstruction was often conceived in an academic, conservative manner, so that the process of 'thinning out', for example, actually tended to isolate the monumental buildings, changing the unity of places designed for public and private use