Naples

Naples – capital of the kingdom of the same name – was one of the richest and most populous city of Baroque Europe. During the sixteenth century it underwent a major urban reorganization and saw its population double during the next century, surpassing 300,000 inhabitants, making Naples the second most populous city in Europe after Paris. The viceroy who ruled on behalf of the distant king and all the bodies for the administrative, financial and judicial authorities of the kingdom lived there. The municipal government was exercised by the Board (or Tribunal) of San Lorenzo (named after the church where it met), formed by the so-called “elected” representatives of the five constituencies in which the Neapolitan nobility was divided, called piazze (squares) sedili or seggi (seats): Capuana, Nido, Montagna, Porto and Portanova. To these were added one which was “elected” by the people. In the seventeenth century, Naples was shaken by natural events (the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631), revolts (the so-called Masaniello revolt in 1647-1648) and by terrible epidemics (plague of 1656-1657). With the extinction of the Habsburgs of Austria, the city came for a few years under Austrian rule, only to return to being, starting from 1734, the property of the new dynasty of the King of Spain, the Bourbons.