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Naples was settled as early as the ninth century BC and called Parthenope but it was as overtaken by incoming settlers from Eubea who created a the new city in the fifth century and gave it the name Neapolis. The city was a favourite of roman magnates and Virgil wrote some of his best work while residing here. It fell briefly into the hands of the Goths in the fourth century but was soon returned to Byzantine and achieved its independence in 763 and remained so until it was taken by the Normans in 1139 and incorporated into the kingdom of Sicily. They quickly lost it to the Hohenstaufen dynasty who, after in disinterested rule, lost it to the Angevins in 1269. The only Angevin to do the city good was Robert the Wise who made the city a great centre for Art and culture but otherwise the rule was not a good. In the reign of Charles of Anjou the city became the capital of the kingdom. In 1422 the Angevins lost Naples to Alfonso I of Aragon, creating a Spanish connection for 300 years until the War of the Spanish Succession saw the passing of Naples briefly to the Austrians, before being passed onto Charles of Bourbon in 1734. His son briefly let go of the reigns to the French republic before the stepped in to return power to the Bourbon monarch. It was during the Bourbon reign that the city of culture developed as the immoral and depraved prostitution capital on the continent and the last stop for wealthy travellers on the Grand Tour. It remained in Bourbon hands until being united into the unified Italy in 1880. |