The neighborhood Fork is one of the most well-known and picturesque areas in the city of Naples. It is located in the historic center, between the San Lorenzo and Pendino districts, and extends to the Porta Capuana area. Specifically, you can encounter it in the vicinity of Cathedral Street, Spaccanapoli and Corso Umberto I.

It is an area particularly rich in history and artifacts dating back to the 16th century, when the dominating Aragonese. The name of the ancient and popular suburb comes from its ipsilon-shaped main artery (Y), which precisely resembles a fork. According to other hypotheses, the Y was instead a symbol of the pythagorean school and represented the ideal crossroads between virtue and vice.

Forcella is then linked to the Neapolitan expression "s'arricorda 'o cippo e Forcella," which stands for something very old. The said comes from the discovery of the remains of a wall of the ancient Neapolis dating back to the third century B.C., which emerged during remediation work in Calenda Square. Today these finds are protected by an iron gate, from which one can admire what remains of the Furcilla Door, one of the entrances to the old city.

For years the neighborhood has been a land of conquest for the camorristic clans, over all the clan Julian. At the same time, people like Don Luigi Merola have shone a light on this social scourge, not without difficulty and personal threats.

Forcella, however, also means art and culture. Just think of the "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" movie by Vittorio de Sica filmed in the neighborhood in 1963 and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. Here are also theaters historians, pizzerias and churches of great fascination. So let's see what are the most interesting attractions that can be seen in Fork.

Jorit's Mural

Since 2011, the Neapolitan artist Jorit makes beautiful, large-scale portraits that immortalize people important to Naples or symbolize social struggles. The main characteristic is that the street artist imagines these people as warriors belonging to the same tribe and depicts them with scratches on their faces, which have become the artist's hallmark.

I murals scattered around the city are located in the most degraded and popular areas of Naples, and many have become a gathering place for tourists. In addition to the work dedicated to Maradona, one of Jorit's most famous works is the mural of San Gennaro Fork.

For the artist, San Gennaro is not a saint, but rather a working man, in fact the image was inspired by a worker friend of his. The portrait was painted in 2015 in Crocelle Square at the Mannesi and was the first urban artwork to be blessed by the pastor of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Santa Maria Egiziaca in Forcella

The church of St. Mary of Egypt in Forcella is one of the churches in the neighborhood and is a splendid example of baroque art Neapolitan. The structure and the adjacent monastery were founded in 1342 at the behest of Queen Sancha of Majorca, consort of the King Robert of Anjou.

The monastery was designed to provide assistance to the prostitutes repentant. In fact, the church is named after St. Mary of Egypt, sinner redeemed who would spend 47 years in the desert d'Egypt as hermit.

This is the second church in Naples to be dedicated to the saint. The other is located in Pizzofalcone, and to avoid confusion, the people renamed the one in Forcella Santa Maria Egiziaca all'Olmo, in reference to the large tree that stands in the square.

The entrance to the church is near Corso Umberto I, in the area where the street joins Via Carlo Felice. Originally the entrance was located on Via Forcella and was moved only after the building was renovated.

The place of worship houses interiors decorated with polychrome marbles very striking. Then there are precious frescoes such as The Communion of Mary Egyptian by Andrea Vaccaro and The Conversion of Luca Giordano.  

Fountain of the Scapigliata

On Via Egiziaca in Forcella you can meet the Fountain of the Scapigliata, the construction of which dates back to the urban redevelopment desired by the Viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo between 1539 and 1541. It is located opposite Ascalesi Hospital and was designed by Giovanni Merliano da Nola.

The fountain was called "of the scapigliata" because of the peculiar movement of its water jet breaking on a rock-shaped stone placed inside an elliptical basin. In the beginning, the fountain was rich in water and was used to supply two mills of the Holy House of the Annunciation and the houses in the surrounding area.

The edges of the tank are very high and solid to allow the housewives of yesteryear to go and wash clothes. In the mid-19th century, the structure's original cliff was replaced by a marble column with the coat of arms Of the City of Naples. To the right of the Scapigliata Fountain is the Capon Fountain, so called because water gushes from a large head-shaped stone and it too is fully functional.

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating places in the Forcella neighborhood. It is one of the earliest city churches and seems to have been founded between the 4th and 5th centuries.

The entrance is a few steps from Jorit's mural and features an early Christian apse with large columns and Corinthian capitals. Initially, the church was known as the Severiana, in memory of the bishop who had founded it and only since the 9th century has it been consecrated to St. George.

In 1640, major restoration work took place by order of Cosimo Fanzago and it was during this period that the orientation of the building was reversed. The church originally had 3 naves, but the one on the right was destroyed in the course of the expansion works that affected nearby Cathedral Street during the 19th century.

Under the altar of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore are now preserved the relics of St. Severus who fought against theArianism and whose remains were found in the catacombs of the Sanità District.

One of the most interesting objects is Alessio d'Elia's large painting immortalizing St. George. The work is placed on a mobile stand that conceals another painting of the saint attributed to Aniello Falcone.

Dating back to 1645, the second painting remained covered by the other canvas for centuries before being unearthed. The basis of this concealment is thought to be Aniello Falcone's relationship with the Company of Death, a group that aimed to eliminate all the Spaniards present in Naples.

It seems, in fact, that the painter himself was involved in acts criminals and for that reason no more works were commissioned from him. It is therefore plausible that when d'Elia was about to make his painting over Falcone's, he then decided to preserve the pre-existing one anyway. The two paintings tell the same episode in the life of St. George, but they differ from each other in that Falcone prefers lighter and warmer tones, while d'Elia is more inclined to dark colors.

Trianon Viviani Theater

The Trianon theater stands in Vincenzo Calenda Square, near Castel Capuano and the Decumani. Its inauguration dates back to 1911, when. Vincenzo Scarpetta debuts as the protagonist of Misery and nobility Of Eduardo Scarpetta, his father.

In the following years, the theater frequently changed function. First it was used for the scripted genre, and in the Fascist era it took the name Trionfale. In 1940 it became a movie theatre under the name of Splendor.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Trianon Theater saw big-name actors such as the De Filippo, the Tarantos, Totò, Raffaele Viviani and many singers of Neapolitan song. Since 2002 there has been a profound renewal, and the artistic direction has been alternated with Nino D'Angelo and Marisa Laurito.

The structure of the theater accommodates 530 seats with the most classic Italian-style theater form, that is, with 3 tiers of boxes. Renovations between 2000 and 2002 revealed an important Greek find of the ancient fortification of Neapolis, known as the siren's tower, which is partly included in the new building.

Archaeological site of Carminiello ai Mannesi

Not far from Naples Cathedral is Via Carminiello ai Mannesi, and it is here that the eponymous archaeological site. The remains belong to an ancient Roman building discovered during the 1943 bombing that destroyed the church of Santa Maria del Carmine at the Mannesi And neighboring buildings.

The site consists of a two-level building composed of a main core placed around the 1st century and other elements added in later periods. The original structure was incorporated into another building in the imperial age and had service rooms on the ground floor and a spa complex upper floor. Water pipes, some marble basins and a relief depicting the god Mithras While sacrificing a bull.