Lying on the west coast of Italy 120 miles south-east of Rome, in the fertile province of Campania, Naples was by far the most important city of southern Italy. In the eighteenth century it became renowned for its accomplishments in music, art, architecture and literature, and among the many prominent people who had words of praise for this city were P. J. Grosley, G. F. Coyer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Antonio Eximeno y Pujades. Charles de Brosses (1709–77) visited Naples in 1739 while Zerafa was studying there; his statement that Naples was ‘the capital of the world's music’, manages to capture the city's important musical position at the beginning of Bourbon rule. According to de Brosses, Naples was the only Italian city that seemed truly metropolitan, similar to Paris and London.

The history of Naples towards the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century (central to our study) is marked by a series of wars between the Spanish and the Austrians, who fought for its possession. Carolyn Gianturco explains the difficult times Naples passed through:

Nevertheless, from a purely cultural point of view, the history of Naples from the late-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century is a lively one. Throughout this period some aspects of Neapolitan life remained constant, one of them being music. The principal kind of music being written during this time was opera, a preferred entertainment of the viceroys. Opera was usually given in the Teatro San Bartolomeo or the Teatro dei Fiorentini, as well as in the viceregal palace itself. The Teatro San Bartolomeo also offered plays adapted to the Neapolitan taste by Neapolitan authors. Opera was given during much of the year (during carnival, in April, in August, in October and in November), and was also a preferred means of celebrating an event in the life of a ruler or an anniversary such as a birthday, name-day or wedding-day.