From second-hand book stalls and hard-to-find editions to vintage prints, independent bookshops and places to stop and read: a walking route through the historic centre to discover a Naples made of paper, ink and stories.
In Naples there are streets specialising in nativity scenes, musical instruments and antiques. And then there is one where, for generations, the urban landscape has been shaped above all by books. This is Port’Alba, a narrow street just a few hundred metres long that slips into the historic centre from Piazza Dante. Here books are not simply lined up neatly on shelves: they spill onto outdoor tables, pile up in stacks, fill windows and doorways, and pass from the hands of students to those of collectors. Among them are old editions, prints, university textbooks and the occasional title that seemed to have vanished from circulation.
It is a great starting point for discovering a Naples beyond its major monuments. A simple route to walk in a morning or an afternoon, taking in Piazza Dante, Port’Alba, Piazza Bellini, Via San Sebastiano, Piazza del Gesù and the university district.
If you want to explore more sides of the city, the Volare page dedicated to Naples has more itineraries and ideas.
Port’Alba, the gateway to books
In the seventeenth century, Naples was expanding beyond its city walls and residents needed quicker links between the centre and the new neighbourhoods developing outside them. To avoid long detours, they had begun opening up unauthorized passages through the walls. In 1625, one of these openings, facing what is now Piazza Dante, was turned into an official city gate by the viceroy Antonio Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba: And so Port’Alba was born, taking its name from the viceroy himself.
For a long time, however, Neapolitans preferred to call it Porta Sciusciella. In Neapolitan, sciusciella means carob, the nickname coming from the carob trees that grew near the neighbouring convent of San Sebastiano. Today, entering from Piazza Dante, you pass through that same gate into a narrow street lined with shop windows and book stalls. The City of Naples still describes it as the “kingdom of bookshops”, where you can look for school and university texts, books on art and history, publishing rarities, prints and period engravings.
Second-hand books, rarities and small publishers
A good first stop is Libreria Langella, at number 10 Port’Alba. Opened in 2014, it is not one of the street’s oldest establishments, but carries on its tradition perfectly. It sells new and second-hand books, offers antiquarian works and titles that are no longer commercially available, and pays particular attention to small publishers. Outside, it still has the characteristic stalls of bargain books.
It is also worth browsing the Edizioni Langella catalogue, which includes publications connected with Naples, its history, its music and even the Neapolitan language. It is exactly the kind of purchase that makes more sense here than yet another mass-produced souvenir.
The memory of Libreria Guida and a bookshop where you can have a drink
Port’Alba also preserves traces of the bookshops that are no longer here. The most important is the historic premises of Libreria Guida, which closed in 2003 and is now commemorated by a plaque. In 1983 it was declared a cultural asset of the Italian state, and its famous “saletta rossa”, or red room, hosted meetings on politics, art, history, poetry, music and literature. More than just a shop, it was one of the key places in Naples’ twentieth-century intellectual life.
A little further on, meanwhile, is an example of how a bookshop can change shape without entirely losing its identity. Libreria Berisio, at number 28, combines reading spaces, a bar and live music; today it works mainly as a hybrid venue and in the evening takes on the atmosphere of a cocktail bar.
An interesting fact: some scenes from the second season of My Brilliant Friend were filmed here. To explore the relationship between Elena Ferrante and the city in more depth, read our Volare article Cities of Fiction: travelling on World Book Day.
From Piazza Bellini to books, wine and vinyl
Leaving Port’Alba, you practically step straight into another of the historic centre’s great informal living rooms: Piazza Bellini, a meeting point for students, musicians and people from the nearby universities. A few steps away, on Via San Pietro a Majella, is Perditempo – Libri, vini e vinili. The name itself is a statement of intent: books, records and wine share the same space, a literary café for lovers of reading and music. It is better suited to late afternoon or evening than to silent library-style reading, and that is precisely the point: in Naples, book culture rarely exists separately from conversation and social life.
Nearby, Colonnese Libri & Altro is also worth a visit. Colonnese Editore is a historic Neapolitan publishing house, and its catalogue is particularly interesting if you are looking for something that tells the story of the city without buying the usual tourist guide. The Parthenope collection, for example, brings back classics of literature devoted to Naples in carefully designed small-format editions, while Le Bussole offers historical and artistic guides to the heritage of Naples and Campania.
Via San Sebastiano: where paper meets music
From here, it is worth taking a short detour along Via San Sebastiano. For many years this street was associated with musical instrument shops, partly thanks to its proximity to the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory. That concentration has diminished over time, but the tradition has not disappeared: instrument shops and luthiers’ workshops can still be found here. In the centre of Naples, books, theatre, music, publishing and university life have occupied the same handful of streets for centuries, constantly overlapping.
One last hunt for a lost book
If you still feel like rummaging, continue towards Piazza del Gesù and then Via Mezzocannone. Here you will find Librerie Dante & Descartes, one of the most interesting independent book businesses in the centre, now with two locations: Via Mezzocannone 63 and Piazza del Gesù Nuovo 14.
Their speciality is what they call “lost and found books”: antique, old, rare and out-of-print texts, first editions, manuscripts, autographs, second-hand books and university books. Their catalogue lists more than 5,000 rare, antique and out-of-print titles. But Dante & Descartes is also a small publishing house: today it publishes around twenty books a year, including new titles, translations and reissues.
If you want to add one last contemporary outlet, head to Via Santa Chiara. Libreria Tamu was founded with the idea of using books to open “new windows onto the world”, and offers a distinctive selection of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics and magazines, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans, Latin America and contemporary social issues. It is a good counterpoint to the antiquarian bookshops of Port’Alba: Naples on paper does not live on memory alone.
What to take home from a Naples made of paper
At the end of the walk you may not have bought a single fridge magnet, and that is perfectly fine. An old postcard of Naples, an engraving, a small edition from a local publisher, a second-hand book with a dedication on the first page or a volume in Neapolitan will probably tell you more about the city.
The historic centre of Naples, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1995, preserves around twenty-five centuries of urban layers. Along these few streets, that history can almost literally be read: a seventeenth-century gate, an old bookshop turned into a memory, second-hand books displayed on pavements, independent publishers, students, musicians, cocktails and conversations. To get to know this Naples, you do not need to read the pages in order. Just start at Port’Alba and see where the story takes you.
