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50 free Naples trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Naples trivia quiz covers a city founded by Greeks, ruled by Normans, Angevins, Spaniards and Bourbons, and squeezed between two volcanoes. It opens with the essentials: the region, the Siren the first colony was named after, the meaning of Neapolis, and the two ancient towns buried nearby in AD 79. Then it works through the kingdoms and their leftovers: the egg Virgil supposedly hid under a castle, the fisherman who led a revolt in 1647, the plague that halved the population, the Bourbon king who built a palace to rival Versailles, the first railway in Italy, and Garibaldi's arrival in 1860. The second half is the living city. San Gennaro's blood liquefying three times a year, the oldest working opera house in the world, the Veiled Christ, the metro station voted Europe's most beautiful, the coffee pot that led to the espresso machine, the queen who lent her name to a pizza, the shell-shaped pastry, the song written for a funicular up Vesuvius, and the Argentine whose name is now on the football stadium. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Naples and its landmarks, dishes and people, and each question links to the page that establishes it. Fifty questions, free, with an explanation after every answer.
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Q 01Naples is the capital of which Italian region?
Campania
It is the largest city in southern Italy and the third largest in the country after Rome and Milan.
Q 02The first Greek colony on the site of Naples was named after which mythological figure?
Parthenope, a Siren
Her name means 'pure eyes'; the settlement stood on the island of Megaride and later Pizzofalcone hill.
Q 03What does the Greek name Neapolis, adopted in the sixth century BC, mean?
New town
It became one of the foremost cities of Magna Graecia and kept its Greek language under Roman rule.
Q 04Which last emperor of the Western Roman Empire was exiled to Naples?
Romulus Augustulus
The Germanic king Odoacer sent him there in the fifth century AD.
Q 05How did the Byzantine general Belisarius get into Naples in 536?
Through an aqueduct
The city then became part of the Byzantine sphere and later an independent duchy.
Q 06Which Angevin king moved the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily from Palermo to Naples?
Charles I
Crowned in 1266, he lived at the Castel Nuovo and imported French architects to build in Gothic style.
Q 07Federico II, founded in 1224, is regarded as the world's oldest institution of what kind?
State-funded secular university
Frederick II founded it to train secular administrators for his kingdom.
Q 08Which event of 1282 split the Kingdom of Sicily, leaving Naples with the mainland?
The Sicilian Vespers
The island went to Aragon; the Peace of Caltabellotta in 1302 confirmed the division.
Q 09Which battle of 1503 won Naples for Spain from the French?
Garigliano
The city then remained part of the Spanish Empire throughout the Habsburg period, ruled by viceroys.
Q 10By the 17th century Naples was Europe's second-largest city after which one?
Paris
A plague soon afterwards devastated its 300,000 people.
Q 11What was the trade of Masaniello, who led the 1647 revolt against Spanish rule?
Fisherman
His uprising created a brief independent Neapolitan Republic.
Q 12Roughly what share of Naples's 300,000 inhabitants died in the plague of 1656?
Half
It was an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Q 13Which architect designed the Royal Palace of Caserta, begun in 1752?
Luigi Vanvitelli
The Bourbon king who commissioned it later became King of Spain; it is one of the largest palaces of 18th-century Europe.
In 1839 Naples became the first city on the Italian peninsula to have what?
Q 21Who is the patron saint of Naples?
Januarius
San Gennaro was martyred in the fourth century AD.
Q 22What do Neapolitans gather three times a year to see San Gennaro's blood do?
It liquefies
The blood is kept in a sealed ampoule in the cathedral; legend says a woman named Eusebia saved it after his death.
Q 23According to legend, what did a Roman poet turned sorcerer hide under Castel dell'Ovo?
A magical egg
Medieval Naples remembered the author of the Aeneid as a sorcerer; the castle's name means Egg Castle.
A railway
The line ran to Portici, at the foot of Vesuvius.
Q 15The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with Naples as capital, existed in which years?
1816-1861
It was ruled by the Bourbon-Two Sicilies branch until Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand.
Q 16Whose Expedition of the Thousand ended Bourbon rule in Naples?
Giuseppe Garibaldi
The controversial siege of Gaeta followed, and Naples joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Q 17Why did Ferdinand II have the Bourbon Tunnel dug beneath the city?
He feared the revolution-prone populace
Errico Alvino built it as a military passage linking the Royal Palace to the barracks.
Q 18The Four Days of Naples in September 1943 was an uprising against whom?
German occupation forces
It ran from 27 to 30 September, immediately before Allied troops arrived on 1 October.
Q 19Naples lies between Mount Vesuvius and which other volcanic region?
The Phlegraean Fields
The Campi Flegrei caldera is often called a supervolcano in the media, though it does not meet the strict definition.
Q 20Which two Roman towns near Naples were destroyed by Vesuvius in AD 79?
Pompeii and Herculaneum
Oplontis and Stabiae were buried too; the finds fill the city's National Archaeological Museum.
Q 24Which empress was imprisoned in Castel dell'Ovo by Tancred in 1191?
Constance
Pope Celestine III pressured Tancred into releasing Henry VI's wife in May 1192.
Q 25The Teatro di San Carlo, opened in 1737, holds what world record?
Oldest continuously active opera venue
It was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, four decades before La Scala.
Q 26The Veiled Christ in the Cappella Sansevero was carved in 1753 by whom?
Giuseppe Sanmartino
Prince Raimondo di Sangro commissioned the marble effigy as the chapel's centrepiece.
Q 27Whose family holdings form the core of the Naples National Archaeological Museum?
The Farnese
It includes the Farnese Hercules, the Farnese Bull and the Farnese Cup, a Ptolemaic sardonyx bowl.
Q 28Which Naples Metro station, opened in 2012, has been called Europe's most beautiful?
Toledo
The Daily Telegraph and CNN both ranked it top; it won the 'Academy Award of Underground Works' in 2015.
Q 29Whose 17th-century career made Naples a capital of the Baroque?
Caravaggio
The city also fostered the School of Posillipo and Neapolitan Liberty, its version of Art Nouveau.
Q 30The art of the Neapolitan pizzaiolo is inscribed on which UNESCO list?
Intangible Cultural Heritage
The city's historic centre is separately a World Heritage Site.