Champions Juventus climbed to fourth in Serie A as they continued their impressive recent resurgence with a 3-1 win over second-placed Fiorentina on Sunday.
The visitors were looking to end a seven-year winless streak in Turin and made a strong start when Josip Ilicic fired them into the lead from the penalty spot with only three minutes played.
But Juan Cuadrado headed the equaliser against his former club just three minutes later and goals in the last ten minutes from Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala sealed a sixth successive win for the reigning champions.
Napoli remain third, level on points with Fiorentina and four behind leaders Inter, after battling out a 0-0 draw with Roma at the Stadio San Paolo.
The visitors were grateful to goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, who pulled off a string of fine saves in the second half, notably from Marek Hamsik and substitute Omar El Kaddouri.
Roma did have a late effort from Daniele De Rossi ruled out for offside, but are likely to be the happier of the two sides with the draw, having failed to win any of their previous five games in all competitions.
Milan, meanwhile, were booed off at San Siro after being held to a 1-1 draw at home to bottom club Hellas Verona.
The visitors have yet to win a single league game this season and the result piled the pressure on under-fire Milan coach Sinisa Mihajlovic.
Carlos Bacca put Milan in front just after the break, but their lead lasted only five minutes as Nigel de Jong brought down Leandro Greco in the box and received a red card for his efforts.
Veteran frontman Luca Toni duly converted the resulting penalty and the visitors withstood sustained late pressure from the ten-man hosts to secure a morale-boosting point.
Chievo solidified their mid-table position with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Atalanta at the Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi.
Valter Birsa scored what proved to be the winner for the hosts with 14 minutes left, after Alberto Paloschi had earlier seen a penalty saved by Marco Sportiello.
Nicolo Cherubin had seen red for the visitors in conceding that penalty and the Bergamo side finished the game with nine men after Slovenian midfielder Jasmin Kurtic was given his marching orders in stoppage-time.
Empoli also enjoyed a home win, comfortably seeing off struggling Carpi 3-0.
Former Middlesbrough striker Massimo Maccarone scored two of the goals for Marco Giampaolo's men, who have now lost just two of their last nine league outings.
Riccardo Saponara also found the net to take his tally for the season to five.
