As if Amalfi was not heavenly enough, there is one slice of true paradise in a secluded corner of its Cathedral of Sant’Andrea: the Cloister of Paradise, an elegant Arabic-style architecture built between 1266 and 1268, where a refined peristyle – with vaults supported by 120 slender, candid double columns – surrounds a garden full of palm trees and flowers.

The cloister was built by archbishop Filippo Augustariccio, mostly remembered for the “great good he did his homeland” and for the “countless monuments” he left for posterity, as ancient chroniclers recorded. The Tuscan poet and writer Renato Fucini (1843-1921) once wrote, “Judgment Day will feel like any other day to the people of Amalfi who will go to Paradise.”