Finished in 1282, the Castel Nuovo, or New Castle, provided the rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily with a bastion in the city of Naples.
The walls of this fortress are just unbelievably massive, meant to intimidate and repel attackers. The pointed stones and scalloped walls were designed to cause battering rams’ blows to glance off at an angle.
The massive towers punctuate the walls made of tuff, the local, sandy colored stone.
Now a museum, the fortress has greeted visitors to Naples coming into the port for close to 800 years.
Tuff is an igneous stone, of a volcanic origin. Not surprising in a City which sits hard by Mt. Vesuvius. Was the triumphal arch entrance erected during the Renaissance era?
Yes, the arch is one of the major monuments of Renaissance sculpture in Naples.