see Naples and die

»Vedi Napoli e poi muori!« sagen sie hier. »Siehe Neapel und stirb!«

As they say here, “Vedi Napoli e poi muori! — See Naples and die!”

• see Naples and then die

Unknown origin and authorship, but likely to have been coined in the city itself when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (of which Naples was the capital) was at its golden age, that is, during the kingdom of Bourbons.

The sentence was famously quoted by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his Italian Journey: vedi Napoli e poi muori.

see Naples and die

1. Once one has seen the Italian city of Naples, one can die peacefully, since nothing else can match its beauty.