Welcome to the site Napoliforme

In the 17th century, the city expanded 'outside the walls'. The need for rapid connections between the urban area and the villages that had sprung up behind the wall led to numerous pertugiums (unauthorised passages) in the walls, and in 1625 the Spanish viceroy of the time, Antonio Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, transformed the pertugium between the walls and Largo Mercatello, now Piazza Dante, into Port'Alba. Although the Neapolitans preferred Porta Sciusciella to the viceroy's name, from the sciuscelle, the fruit of the carob tree in the nearby convent of San Sebastiano. The Port'Alba street, which is part of the university area, is the kingdom of bookshops, where you can look for school and university textbooks, history books, art books, publishing 'rarities', vintage prints and engravings. One of the 'historic' bookshops in Port'Alba is the old Berisio bookshop, with reading stations, a bar, live music and tables outside. Some scenes from the second series of L'amica geniale, based on the novels by Elena Ferrante, were filmed there. Another historic bookshop is the Guida bookshop, closed in 2003 and commemorated by a plaque. Declared a cultural asset of the State in 1983, meetings and conferences on politics, art, history, poetry, music and literature were held in its 'little red room'.