The house-blocks enclosed by these streets were all of similar size and shape, a thin oblong of 35 x 180 metres (39 x 198 yds.).

Some of the public buildings naturally trespassed on to more than one 'insula'; a theatre appears indeed to have stretched over parts of three.

In general, the oblongs seem to have been laid out with great regularity and the angles are right angles, though the 'insulae' in the northern and southern rows of house-blocks cannot have been fully rectangular and symmetrical.
[86] The limits are the Castel Capuano on the east, the Strada dell' Orticello on the north, the church of S.Pietro a Majella on the west, and on the south the churches of S.Marcellino and S.Severino.
This town-plan of Naples differs from any of those noted above.

Its blocks are narrower than those in any Italian town, unless in Modena, and while they resemble the 'insulae' of the sixth region of Pompeii (fig.

13), are far more regular than those.