Castel Capuano is one of Naples's older castles, though it reads less like a postcard fortress than a heavy civic building absorbed into the city. Founded in the Norman period and later reshaped, it spent centuries as Naples's courthouse, which gives it a different weight from the waterfront Castel Nuovo.
The castle is most interesting as part of a walk around Porta Capuana and the eastern edge of the centro storico. This is a tougher, less polished side of Naples, but the building helps explain how royal, legal, and street life have long pressed against each other here.