Castel dell'Ovo
— a yellow fortress the bay keeps.
Not only on a wall.
“The castle on Megaride, the small island where Naples began. The Greeks who founded Parthenope here in the eighth century BC chose the spot for the harbour it makes; the Romans built Lucullus a villa on the same rock. The yellow tuff that built it is the same stone the city is made of, and from the ramparts you look across the bay to Vesuvius. The legend is that Virgil hid an egg in the foundations and that the castle stands as long as the egg holds. Down at the foot, the Borgo Marinari fishing boats still tie up where they always have.
Castel dell'Ovo, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Castel dell'Ovo stands on Megaride, a small tuff-rock islet on the Naples waterfront in the region of Campania, in southern Italy. The island was the landing place of Greek colonists from Cumae who founded Parthenope here around the eighth century BC, the settlement that would later become Naples. A short causeway connects it to Via Partenope at the foot of the Pizzofalcone hill, putting it about a kilometre west of the Royal Palace and Piazza del Plebiscito. The current fortress was raised by the Norman king Roger II beginning around 1140 over the remains of a Roman villa once held by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and reworked under the Angevins and the Aragonese in the centuries that followed.
The castle is built from Neapolitan yellow tuff, the volcanic stone that underlies much of the city and gives its older walls their warm ochre cast. The same tuff was quarried for the catacombs, for the Greek city walls, and for the foundations of Castel Nuovo a kilometre to the east. Norman work from the twelfth century survives in the lower courses, with later Angevin and Aragonese fabric layered above; the round Torre Maestra and the Torre Normandia are the most recognisable elements from the bay. Beneath the courtyards, vaulted halls cut into the original rock include the Sala delle Colonne, a hall of slim columns that was once part of the Roman villa on the site.
Entry to Castel dell'Ovo is free, and the ramparts, the upper terrace, and a selection of inner halls are open to the public on a daily schedule set by the Comune di Napoli. The approach is along Via Partenope on the lungomare promenade, across the short causeway to the Borgo Marinari, the small fishing village at the castle's foot where restaurants line the marina. The ramparts give a wide view across the Bay of Naples to Vesuvius about twelve kilometres east, with Capri and the Sorrento peninsula on the southern horizon. The closest metro stop is Piazza Municipio on Line 1, about fifteen minutes' walk along the seafront. The upper rooms host periodic exhibitions.