Aversa is a city and comune in the Province of Caserta in Campania,  southern Italy, about 24 km north of Naples.

Aversa, town and episcopal see, Campania region, southern Italy, in the fertile Campanian plain north of Naples.

Founded in 1030 by the Normans, who made it the capital of the first Norman county in Italy, it became a centre of culture, noted for its grammar schools, and a diocese of the Holy See. It became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Notable landmarks include the 11th-century cathedral and the Norman castle, both rebuilt in the 18th century. The composer Domenico Cimarosa was born at Aversa in 1749.

HIGHLIGHTS

It is the centre of an agricultural district, the Agro Aversano, producing wine and cheese (famous for the typical buffalomozzarella). Aversa is also the main seat of the faculties of Architecture and Engineering of the Seconda università degli studi di Napoli (Second University of Naples). With a population of 52,974 (2017), it is the second city of the province after Caserta.

Main sights

Aversa, the second in historic importance of the dioceses of Campania, is the “city of a hundred churches” in its extensive historic center. Among its monuments:

• The Romanesque Duomo, dedicated to Saint Paul, has a spectacular ambulatory and a majestic octagonal dome. Francesco Solimena‘s Madonna of the Gonfaloneand the Quattrocento painter Angiolillo Arcuccio‘s Martyrdom of St Sebastian are in the Duomo. The pre-Romanesque sculpture of St George and the Dragon is one of the few surviving free-standing sculptures of its date. An outstanding collection of Baroque liturgical silver is kept in the Treasury.
• The Baroque Church of San Francesco delle Monache.
• The Ospedale Psichiatrico Santa Maria Maddalena founded by Joachim Murat in 1813 which was the oldest Judicial Psychiatric Hospital in Italy and the center of many accusations of abuse.
• The Real Casa dell’Annunziata.
• The Benedictine Abbey of San Lorenzo, founded in the 10th century, with a fine Renaissance cloister.
• The Church of Santa Maria a Piazza, founded in the 10th century, has frescoes of the school of Giotto.
• Other churches in the city conserve paintings by Guido da Siena, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Marco Pino da Siena, Pietro da Cortona, Pietro Negroni il Giovane Zingaro, Giuseppe Ribera, Cornelius Smeet, Abram Vink, Teodoro d’Errico, Francesco de Mura, Massimo Stanzione, and Paolo de Maio.
• The Historic Former Railway station (Stazione Ferrovia Napoli Piedimonte D’Alife) of a long closed 1913 railway
• The Historic Aragonese Castle which now houses the Italian Penitentiary Police (Italy’s Correction Officers) training facility