See Naples and then… Afragola!

Afragola rises in the heart of Ancient Campania felix, in a territory frequented since the Neolitic. It was founded in 1140 by the King of Sicily Ruggero il Normanno to distribute land to his veteran soldiers, an episode that was celebrated by painter Augusto Moriani on a 1866 canvas painting.

Some think that Afragola was named like this due to the fact that it had many strawberry fields, or maybe cereal ones, like experts say. The city through its long journey became one of the most populated towns of the province of Naples. In 2017, the city with the first railway station designed by a woman, the only one worldwide signed by "Pritzer Prize" Zaha Hadid. 

Known as the Porta del Sud, an intermodal interchange node with the Rome-Naples-Salerno high speed railway and with the Naples-Benevento-Bari high capacity line, the station was built in 2015-17.

BBC and CNN named it among the best 2017 constructions worldwide and for ADAC, Europe's largest automobile association, it is one of the world's 11 most beautiful railway systems. Built in just 2 years, the Anglo-Iraqi starchitect that designed it died in 2016 did not manage to see it completed. And she was obviously not even able to be handed the prestigious international prize «2018 Surface Travel Award for Transportation».

If Augusto Moriani lived to our days, he would have certainly have had material to use for a marvellous new painting to his city.