Mercato (Italian for "market") is a neighbourhood or ''

quartiere A (; plural: ) is a territorial subdivision of certain Italian towns. The word derives from (‘fourth’) and was thus properly used only for towns divided into four neighborhoods by the two main roads. It has been later used as a synonymous ...

'' of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, southern Italy. It is in the south-eastern part of the city, bounded by the industrial port of Naples on the south. At the center of the area is the Piazza del Mercato or "market square", the medieval market place of the city. At the apex of the half-moon of the piazza is the church of Santa Croce e Purgatorio al Mercato. Visible to the east and west respectively are the belltowers and parts of the façade of

Sant'Eligio Maggiore Sant’Eligio Maggiore is a church in Naples, southern Italy. It is located near Piazza Mercato (Market Square), and was built during the reign of Charles of Anjou by the same congregation that built the nearby Sant’Eligio hospital in 1270. It ...

and the church of Santa Maria del Carmine. The square was the site of the execution of

Conradin Conrad III (25 March 1252 – 29 October 1268), called ''the Younger'' or ''the Boy'', but usually known by the diminutive Conradin (german: link=no, Konradin, it, Corradino), was the last direct heir of the House of Hohenstaufen. He was Duke ...

. It was also where Masaniello's revolt broke out and also the site of the executions after the royalist retaking of the

kingdom Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...

after the fall of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. The area was somewhat cut off from the rest of the city, inland, by the urban renewal () of the early 1900s.* F. M. Snowden, 1995: ''Naples in the Time of Cholera 1884-1911''. CUP
online version
Also, it was severely damaged by bombings in World War II. It is currently (2006) in the midst of ambitious development.

References

Sources

* ''Napoli e i Luoghi Celebri delle sue Vicinanze'', Napoli 184
online version
Quartieri of Naples {{Campania-geo-stub