The foundation of Naples and its port. certainly it falls within the Greek colonization; in the ninth century. B.C. a group of sailors from Rhodes landed on its shores and between the seventh and sixth centuries. B.C. It was founded the Greek colony on the Acropolis of Pizzofalcone.

In 475 A.D. the inhabitants of Cuma founded Neapolis (new city) in the eastern part of the original city. By mainly military port greek-Roman, the port of Naples gradually became more open to sea traffic and increasing importance.

It was under the Normans that the port experienced a period of great splendor, so much so that in 1164 he entered, unique among Italian maritime cities, part of the famous League of the Society, called the “Hanseatic cities”. It was for Naples and its port, one of Norman rule, a period of success in the field of maritime traffic. But it was with the advent of Anjou, in the second half of 1200, particularly during the reign of Charles I of Anjou, the port expanded and it acquired new buildings and the city became the most populous and the most admired d ‘Europe. The fortification of the port and the construction of warehouses, storage depots and factories continued under Aragonese domination (1400) and in the Spanish viceroy.

We must get to the kingdom of the Bourbons (1700) to the port became established as one of the best equipped, the strongest in Europe and the city became one of the great European capitals alongside Paris and London. Indeed, it was under the Bourbons that the arsenal became a large shipyard in 1818 and that day of September 27, the “Real Ferdiando I”, the first steamship of the Mediterranean, was launched.

After 1861 was the decline. The Unification of Italy paradoxically marked negative effect on the port that saw decrease its trade and reduce its activity. The recovery came in the early ‘900 thanks to the efforts of Francesco Saverio Nitti and Admiral Augusto Witting.
Fascism, then saw Naples as a port for colonial possessions and equipped it with new infrastructure and new buildings such as the Maritime Station, designed in 1932 by architect Bazzani.

After the Second World War, the port of Naples became the scene of a terrible mass exodus of thousands of Italians who left from here to seek his fortune in America.