Aversa was the first Norman county in Italy: in 1030 Rainulf Drengot received it in fief, and from this outpost the Normans set off to conquer the South. The way it grew is worth telling: Rainulf offered asylum to anyone who was persecuted, and the little town filled up with people on the run. His nephew Richard, having beaten the pope's troops, found himself holding Leo IX prisoner and escorted him back to Rome with full honours: the gesture earned him the lifting of his excommunication and a diocese for his city.
In the castle here Andrew of Hungary, husband of Queen Joanna, died badly, thrown from a window with a noose round his neck; his brother came down to Italy to avenge him and had the man behind it hanged from the same window. Then came the decline and the plague of 1656, which carried off most of the people of Aversa. The cathedral with its octagonal dome and the quarter of the hundred churches keep the old rank; the Casa Cimarosa remembers the composer born here in 1749. The other glory is on the table and in the glass: the buffalo mozzarella of the plain and Asprinio, the white wine that grows married to poplars on immensely tall trained vines, an Etruscan legacy unique in Europe. And before hemp was made illegal, this was one of the hemp capitals of Italy.
Chiesa di San Bartolomeo · Chiesa di Santa Maria a Piazza · Chiesa e Convento della Maddalena and 1 more
Pizza Napoletana · Caprese
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Next up: Saint Paul, patron whose feast is flanked by the pilgrimage of the Madonna of Casaluce, Monday 25 January
Nearest airport: Napoli Capodichino, 12 km away
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📅 Every year, on 25 January, with the procession of the patron saint
Aversa celebrates Saint Paul on 25 January with the traditional procession of the patron saint; the co-patron Madonna of Casaluce is instead accompanied every 15 October, in a solemn procession, to the border with nearby Casaluce, where she remains until the following 15 June.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Aversa, but an easy day trip away.
