 (Feb
19) This, from one of those
weekly puzzle magazines that throw in random
tid-bits of information on the order of “Did you
know that...?”
“...during the 1700s in the Kingdom Of
Naples it was not uncommon for the rich to will
their fortunes to their own souls. These wills
were called testamento
all’anima. Most of the time, the will was
interpreted as giving the fortune to the church in
return for memorial masses for the deceased.
Astute minister of the kingdom, Bernardo Tanucci [image,
right], finally got a law passed to prohibt these
wills.”
If that is true, they should have added the note
that Tanucci was a notorious church-baiter. He loved
to needle the church fathers and was even
responsible for getting the Jesuits
expelled from Naples.
- (Feb 19) Richard Lynn is
a professor emeritus at the University of Ulster in
Northern Ireland. His many books and articles bear
titles such as as Race Differences in
Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis and
Race Differences, Immigration, And The
Twilight of the European Peoples. Briefly,
he believes that IQ has a large racial component,
and that the whiter you are, the more intelligent
you are. This (1) comes as a surprise to all those
dumb dark folks in Egypt and India who invented
astronomy and mathematics, and (2) irritates the
hell out of local journalists, who have jumped all
over his latest venture into sociobiology: “In
Italy, north–south differences in IQ predict
differences in income, education, infant mortality,
stature, and literacy” (in Intelligence, Volume 38, Issue 1,
January-February 2010, Pages 93-100). The last
sentence in the journal abstract says, “The lower IQ in
southern Italy may be attributable to genetic
admixture with populations from the Near East and
North Africa." He forgot all the racial
mixing with those other swarthy types, the
Greeks—you know, the ones who invented the alphabet.
His claim that southern Italy has not produced
outstanding intellects or artists since 1400 shows a
stunning gap in his knowledge of this part of the
world. Maybe sociology and history are just too hard
for him.
- (Feb 21) In
terms of high-profile points of urban decay,
there are three constant ones: (1) Piazza Dante, (2) Molo Beverello, and
(3) the adjacent small harbor of Molosiglio. All
three have been in the news recently as one plan
after another "to do something" gets mulled over
by the perennial overmullers in City Hall. They
(the above-mentioned places as well as the
overmullers!) are all in need of repair and then
constant supervision. (1) Work has started on
cleaning up Piazza Dante. That's a tough one. It
looked fine a few years ago when they opened the
new Metro station. There are two problems:
vandalism and motor vehicles trying to deliver
across the square to shops; the paving stones
have come loose or are actually broken from the
traffic. That is easy to fix: at the edge of the
square, install posts that cannot be removed.
That will block traffic. The other problem...
well...maybe snipers. (2) Molo Beverello is the
main passenger boat harbor and the most visible
part of the city to tourists. It's where you get
the boats to go to places such as Sorrento and
Capri. Buying a ticket at Molo Beverello is as
difficult as trying to come up with a metaphor
for how difficult it is to buy a ticket at Molo
Beverello; the place is crowded with
pickpockets, beggars and druggies. Now, people
are staying away from Naples because of the
port; that
has hurt local hotels, and that might
get some action. (3) The adjacent small park at
Molosiglio (see the above link) is a pit. The
operators who run small rides for children in
the park got tired of waiting for the city to do
something, so they cleaned up the waste-filled
fountain a bit, themselves, but they are not
about to take on the vagrants who have pitched
tents on the premises.
- (Feb 21)
Campania regional elections are coming up, and,
as is the case with all elections in Italy, the
city kindly provides the ugliest possible
metal-tube frames for political parties to stick
their posters on. While they are up, they block
your view of the street, Mt. Vesuvius, each
other—but that's what a thriving democracy is
all about! The theory is that these billboards
will keep you from slapping your posters up on
walls. Ho-ho. The city is awash in illegal
election posters. Most of them have been pasted
over someone else's illegal campaign poster. AND
many of them have been put up by underpaid
illegal immigrants hired to do so by political
parties, all of whom officially frown on hiring
illegal workers.
 (Feb 21) In
2005 the European Union banned asbestos from all
new construction and started programs to find
safe alternatives. In Naples, a paper has
surfaced (apparently drawn up last March) that
lists 400 buildings in the Campania region still
contaminated by asbestos. Twenty-four of the
sites are in the city of Naples, itself. Some
don't surprise me, such as older garages used by
the city for their busses and trams. Some,
however—well, the main police station downtown
and the Prefecture at Piazza Plebiscito (photo,
right). This gives me second thoughts about
having a coffee at the delightful Gambrinus bar, right
around the corner (on the right in this photo) in the same
building! Sugar? No, I'm trying cut
down, but I will have some chrysotile fibers,
thank you.
- (Feb 24)
In 1997, the European Union met in Oviedo
[Spain] to draw up a Convention on Human Rights
and Biomedicine. The convention recognized the "living will",
a declaration whereby you may specify what
medical measures should be taken (or not taken)
in extreme end-of-life situations where you are
not able to express your own wishes. (In the
words of the convention: "The previously
expressed wishes relating to a medical
intervention by a patient who is not, at the
time of the intervention, in a state to express
his or her wishes shall be taken into account.")
Italy did not sign the treaty, and the whole
issue of the testamento
biologico, as it is called in Italian,
is still contentious. Nevertheless, a few places
in Italy have set up the appropriate bureaucracy
where you can register your "living will". In
Naples, there are now two such places: the first
was the district of Quarto, and now Ottaviano
has been added to the list.
- (Feb 28) The Underground Naples
entries in the general index indicate
just what a "hidden city" lies beneath Naples.
The Greek quarries, Roman aqueducts, natural
caves, ancient and modern sewer systems, and
sub-surface chambers from old Spanish
buildings long since covered by the modern
road-bed above—all that
combines to bring pleasure and excitement to
urban spelunkers, archaeologists and jewel
thieves, alike. What? Indeed, a few days ago,
a band of mole-men hit the Monetti jewelry
shop on via Toledo and cleaned it out. It's in
the heart of one of the fine shopping
districts, and it all happened "in broad
daylight," as they say. There were no doubt
guards walking around broadly in that
daylight, too, maybe in front of the shop.
That's all irrelevant because the bad guys
came up from the murky darkness of the
netherworld (cue demoniacal laughter!) through
the maze of passageways, even convenient
stairways, entered the shop from below and
left the way they came.
- (Mar
1) Two years ago
the Naples superindendency for archaeology
managed a partial restoration of another bit
of ancient Rome among the many in Pozzuoli.
This one was the Antonino stadium, built in
the mid-second century A.D. It was an athletic
field, the second largest one in the Roman
world, measuring 260 meters by 65 meters, and
the site of a regular Roman Olympiad on the
earlier Greek model. The stadium is on the via
Domiziana, the road that has connected Naples
and Pozzuoli since ancient times and is
located near the modern Olivetti complex of
offices and small businesses. The ancient
stadium has been through countless seismic
disturbances; also, the via Domiziana was
broadened in 1932, which cut into the grounds;
and since the 1960s, the area has been subject
to severe urbanization. Nevertheless, they
restored at least part of, but so far the site
has not been opened to the public, lack of
funding for maintenance and supervisory
personnel being the excuse, as usual.
- (Mar 2) Dept. of "Sauce
for the goose...": City assessors for Naples
generally drive around town in their freebie
cars, serving the public, mind you, and never
running private errands. When they went out to
the parking lot yesterday morning and had a
gander at their cars, they found them
off-limits. It seems the city has not paid the
insurance in spite of repeated dunning notes
from the insurance company!
 (Mar 3)
A recent
BBC on-line item about Naples has caught
the eye of local journalists. It starts:
"Welcome to Naples, a crime-free
utopia of moral and ethical values. Sound
unlikely? One fledgling online community is
hoping to channel their city's ancient roots
to create just that. The people of Partenope
City - named after Naples' historical name -
only cross at pedestrian crossings, park their
cars without blocking people in and never,
ever, jump a red light. These are just some of
the values the site's founder, 35-year-old
Claudio Agrelli, believes have been forgotten
in the 'real' city."
The BBC is excited about the project called Città di
Parthenope, an on-line community of
about 3,000 Neapolitans who use their website
to instill civic pride and civilized behavior.
If you join (it's free) you can start a blog,
sign and circulate petitions, list what works,
what doesn't, complain, praise, AND you even get
a classy ID card! The organization was started
about a year ago.
photo
© NewfotoSud/Sergio Sieno
 (Mar 5)
There are a few large-scale excavations of Roman
Neapolis beneath the historic center of the
city. The site beneath
San Lorenzo is one and is open to the
public. As well, there are on-going projects—the
Roman amphitheater,
for example. Smaller sites are less known, but
they're down there. It has been known at least
since the mid-20th century and the work of
archeologist, Mario Napoli, that the area to the
south-east of the Duomo was the site of Roman
thermal baths. You can walk into almost any shop
in that area of this map
and ask, “Can I take a look in your basement?”
and probably hear, “What basement?” That’s
because the shop-keeper fears you are from the
Commission to Declare this Place a Monument
(motto: "Sorry, you have to move."). Yet,
occasionally serendipity trips down the stairs
and you discover (re-discover, really) a
treasure. Workers checking for gas leaks beneath
a building on via
San Nicola dei Caserti (to the right of
number 30 on the map, linked above, almost at
the edge of the displayed area) have
rediscovered a Roman thermal bath complex. There
was a locked gate (“Been locked forever,”
according to old-timers who live nearby).
Workers got through the gate, and suddenly they
were at the top of a stairway leading down about
4 meters and—lo and behold—the Roman bath. If
there was a gate at the top and then a stairway
going down from the modern street-level, someone
must have known about it a lot less than
"forever" ago.) It is in the same general area
as the excavated Carminiello
ai Mannesi baths. Further disposition from
the CDPM is awaited.
- (Mar
7)
Napoli: the 1900s
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The Castel
Sant'Elmo is slowly going from being
that huge fortress on the hill next to the
museum (San Martino) to being a fine museum
in its own right. The Back to the Baroque
display still features the 40-Hour Devotion altar,
and now there is an art show running
entitled Napoli
'900—about a dozen rooms full of
painting and sculpture done in Naples
between 1910 and 1980. (Pictured above is a
display dedicated to the founder of the
Futurist Movement, Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti; on the left is a bust, Neapolitan
Girl, by Vincenzo Gemito.)
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- The Msc
(Mediterranean Shipping Company) was founded
by Neapolitan, Gianluigi Aponte, in 1970
and is now the second largest container
shipping company in the world. It also has a
fleet of cruise ships. A new one, the Magnifica,
was added the other day at shipyards in
Hamburg, Germany. Hometown (Pozzuoli) girl,
Sophia Loren, was on hand to cut the ribbon
or break the bottle...or whatever...at the
launching.
- Custodians
at Pompeii had a union meeting the other day
from 8.30 to 10.30 a.m. The way it usually
works is that they lock the gates and put
out that annoying sign that tells tourists
to come back in a while. This time, someone
forgot (or maybe “forgot”) to tell the
ticket-office (staffed by employees not
involved in the meeting). They kept selling
tickets. Thus, when the custodians were
finished discussing their future, they
returned to find the most famous
archaeological site in the world aswarm with
paying customers, calmly climbing all over
ancient things they weren’t supposed to and
maybe even stocking up on souvenirs.
 Another offensive ad! —this,
according to various women’s groups in the
city. (It’s a similar situation to this item,
reported earlier.) The new one has a very
beautiful and voluptuously clad woman
holding up an espresso maker (??—I think,
but I really couldn't tell because the hordes of
men drooling in front of the billboard were
blocking my view). She says
(in normal text above her head): “Buy this
gizmo? Are you craaazy?” Then in LARGE
print, scrawled over most of the surface of
the ad...”We’ll give it to you for FREE!”
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