Vomero (pronounced [ˈvɔːmero]) is a bustling hilltop district of metropolitan Naples, Italy — comprising approximately two square kilometres (0.77 sq mi) and a population of 48,000.

During the very earliest period, when Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, the Vomerese hill was called Bomòs (βωμός, or "high ground").

Notably, the word vomere, is used to describe a ploughshare (the blade of a plough) and was the name of agricultural game, the winner being the plowman who could trace the straightest furrow.

The Petraio The oldest access to Vomero remains intact today: an extensive network of pedestrian stairs and paths from the city's original neighborhoods below.

One of the most notable of these paths is the historic Petraio, which arose from an ancient meandering watercourse — ultimately to be improved, inhabited and connected by a series of rustic steps, alleys and ramps — varying in slope and width — and framed by buildings, churches, and small businesses.

Escalators Three urban, outdoor escalators help compensate for Vomero's hilly terrain,[1] connecting Piazza Fuga to Via Morghen and connecting the upper end of Via Scarlatti to two higher intermediate small piazzas (piazzettas) on the way to the upper station of the Montesanto Funicular and the prominent tourist destinations, Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino.

Its oldest area, around present day Antignano, consisted of scattered rural dwellings and villages remaining from Roman settlements, near what was a relatively important road.

Under the Aragonese and subsequently the Spanish, Naples experienced a rapid population increase, due to immigration from the Iberian peninsula and the remaining kingdom.

This district called the Vomere is rich in monasteries and beautiful little houses to be the healthy air having an aspect to the sea (Questa contrada detta il Vomere è ricca di monasteri e di bellissime casine per essere l'aria salutifera avendo un aspetto al mare)Vomero residential development began in earnest in 1885, with the district's official founding (under the law "for the Restoration of Naples") and development of its rectilineal street pattern, punctuated by roundabouts — using a common European urban approach, informed by Baron Haussmann's Paris and the Roman districts of Esquilino and Testaccio.

In addition, before the law on recovery, a Piedmontese bank, the Banca Tiberina, had purchased land at the Vomero between San Martino, via Belvedere and Antignano, with the intention of building a new neighborhood (Garibaldi had already thought of this to the hilly areas as potential new wards, where, however, he believed the proletariat should be hosted) The laying of the foundation stone by the sovereigns took place on 11 May 1885 and, on 20 October 1889, the new district was inaugurated, with the opening of the Funicular of Chiaia, followed by the Funicolare di Montesanto in 1891.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, only a part of the buildings in the center of the Vomero (between Piazza Vanvitelli, along Via Scarlatti and Via Morghen) were made (in addition to the layout of the subdivision).

The Bank of Italy, to recover the capital invested, decided to sell the buildings already built and the land, and split the blocks into smaller lots that could be more easily sold.

Consequently, in the early years of the twentieth century there was no impetuous urban development, but less intensive construction of small, two-storey and small-scale villas was built, surrounded by pretty gardens; which, moreover, had the ability to better enhance the landscape aspects of the places, compared to the large Umbertine buildings.

The construction of small lots, which began at the beginning of the century, continued even after the first world war and continued to attract a new social class, able to acquire single-family homes or for a few families, formed mainly by professionals, entrepreneurs, people anyway wealthy who, with their needs and their way of life, defined the character of the new neighborhood, where in this period life began to take its habits, revolving around Piazza Vanvitelli, the funiculars, the axes of via Scarlatti and via Luca Giordano.

[...] The development of the areas of via Aniello Falcone, via Palizzi, the "Santarella" continued; large prestigious schools opened (the "Vanvitelli", the "Sannazaro"), elite places of leisure, such as the "Diana" theater, inaugurated in 1933 by Prince Umberto, cinemas, restaurants, cafes [...]; clean and efficient clinics, the elegant early Christian basilica style church of San Gennaro, the new sports center of Littorio, elegant shops.

Roughly 200 civilians and 50 military reinforcements attacked the stadium relentlessly, raining machine gun fire from atop surrounding buildings for hours.

The Sannazaro High School became a meeting and coordination place for the Resistance, where Professor Antonio Tarsia in the Curia declared himself head of the insurgents on 30 September 1943, assuming full civil and military powers.

In front of the apartment building at Via Morghen 65 bis (at Via Bonito),[7] a memorial plaque and a pavement Stolperstein mark the life and death of Sergio De Simone (1937-1945), a seven year old Naples-born victim of the Holocaust's Bullenhuser-Damm Massacre.

Via Morghen 65 bis: 40°50′41.9″N 14°14′03.7″E / 40.844972°N 14.234361°E / 40.844972; 14.234361 Napoli Comicon – Salone Internazionale del Fumetto is an annual fair dedicated to comics and animation that took place every year, in Castel Sant'Elmo (now held at the Mostra d'Oltremare, in the Fuorigrotta district).

The neighborhood also hosts the sports complex that grew up around the Stadio Arturo Collana in Naples, where rugby, judo, athletics, swimming, volleyball, artistic gymnastics, skating, tennis, fencing, American football and soccer are practiced.