Melito di Napoli

Melito's name is a ditch. In late Latin «mellito» meant «deep ditch», and there really was one here: the fossato di Napoli, which separated Naples' territory from Capua's and served as a defence in the days of the duchy, when the fighting was against the Normans. It ran through the Giugliano countryside, cut across the Signorelli farm and continued along what is now via Roma. It was probably filled in under the Aragonese, but the streets still follow its line. The other hypothesis is sweeter: melois, «fruits», for the apple orchards that were here. Made a casale of Naples by Frederick II, it was called just that until 1800; and it never had walls, or castles, or fortresses of any kind — a sign that life here was quiet.

The surprise is the church. Santa Maria delle Grazie was rebuilt from scratch on an older one, perhaps of 987, and Giuseppe Astarita raised it on a central plan in the second half of the eighteenth century: the concave-convex façade is turned towards Naples, but sideways it follows the curve of the road, acting as a hinge between the town and the highway. The model is Borromini's San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane: it bends in the middle over the doorway, with a scrolled tympanum and capitals «alla michelangiolina». It is a piece of late baroque that around Naples is called neo-Borrominian, and it stands here, in a town nobody comes to see. At the northern edge are the Colonne di Giugliano, the melitesi's landmark. The rest is a young, very crowded town, among the densest in Italy: central Naples is a metro ride away, the Phlegraean area and the Domitian coast a quarter of an hour.