main index © Jeff Matthews
2002-2012
Naples Miscellany 35 (early March 2011)
Links to
all Naples Miscellany pages
 (Mar 7) –
Newspapers and local cultural groups in Pozzuoli
have commented on the sorry state of neglect into
which the Pozzuoli
amphitheater has fallen. The structure was
begun under Nero and finished by Vepasian (69-79
a.d.); it could accommodate 20,000 spectators and
was the third largest such structure in ancient
Rome. Not too long ago, it underwent a
tourist-friendly sprucing up and even became a venue
for concerts and opera. Now, however, there has not
been such an event since 2008. The structure,
itself, was obviously reinforced and shored up in
order to be able to host public performances, but
smaller bits and pieces of ancient Rome—columns,
marble plaques with Latin inscriptions, statues—seem
to be scattered almost at random around the site,
much of which is untended and overgrown with weeds.
Such items are exposed to the elements and further
deterioration.
- (Mar 8)
– (Related to this
item.) The hyper-modern interchange station at
Afragola for the treni
alta velocità (high speed trains)
has fallen way behind scedule for technical and
financial reasons. (Round up the usual suspects.)
After a three-year pause in construction, work was
resumed last summer, mostly on the foundations for
the station. Progress has been slow, and to a
non-engineer sidewalk superintendent glancing at it
as he drives by, there's nothing high-speed about
it. When finished, the station is expected to handle
96 trains a day on nine platforms. The date for
completion has been pushed back from the end of 2011
to the summer of 2012.
 (Mar
11) – Besides upcoming
celebrations next week throughout Italy to mark the
150th anniversary of the modern nation of Italy,
there will be, at least in this neck of the woods, a
few counter-celebrations by groups with such names
as the "Neo-Bourbon Society" (in reference to the
last dynasty to rule the Kingdom of Naples (aka "the Two Sicilies"). I
know a few of them and my impression is that they
are not advocating a dissolution of the modern state
of Italy; they do, however want justice done to the
history of the Risorgimento,
the events that drove the move for Italian
unification. This includes teaching the history of
the state in the decade of the 1860s, one of brutal repression against
the south. A few local educators have taken matters
into their own hands by renaming an elementary
school in Scafati (near Pompei) after "King
Ferdinand II of Bourbon." He was the last real king
of Naples. (His son succeeded him for a few months
before Garibaldi conquered the kingdom in late
1860). Ferdinand II
ruled Naples for the last 30 years of its existence
as an independent state and was largely responsible
for making Naples a modern military, industrial
nation. Those who have renamed the school in his
honor simply say that they want "the real story" to
be told. In truth, it isn't, so maybe they have a
point, but the new name of the school has unleashed
a few letters to the president of Italy bemoaning
this kind of agitation against "the unity of the
nation." (A crime, by the way, although the
on-again-off-again secessionists of the Northern League have
yet to be held to account.)
 (Mar
17) And more of the above.
Yesterday's festivities on the occasion of the 150th
anniversary of Italy were broadcast on TV for hours.
In spite of all that, Umberto Bossi (Northern League)
called the celebrations "useless" and "rhetorical"
and some of his own party members were noticed not
standing for the Italian national anthem. The usual
anti-unity rhetoric issued forth from the usual
sources: from the north in German-speaking Bolzano,
from the north-central region where the Northern
League styles its part of the nation as "Padania"
and from Naples. There was indeed a large unity
celebration at Piazza Plebiscito with bands and
flags and all the trimmings, but the vociferous
Society of the Two Sicilies is also about halfway
through three days of protests to mark "150 years of
lies." One of these events is at the Piazza dei Martiri where
someone has suggested erecting a statue of a fifth
lion, this one to celebrate the martyrs who died
defending the Bourbon kingdom that fell to Garibaldi
in 1860. One of their posters is seen here; it
proclaims "150 Years of Exploitation Have Reduced
You to the Bone." Maybe the celebration in 2061 will
be more "unified," but I wouldn't count on it.
 (April
1) This is not an April Fool's gag, but it
might be nice if it were. Scientists from the Earth
Sciences department of Frederick II University in
Naples are about to release a report that says,
essentially, that the Campi
Flegrei, the volcanic area to the west of
Naples in the suburbs of Fuorigrotta, Bagnoli,
Agnano and in the town of Pozzuoli—in short, all the
land bordering on the Bay of Pozzuoli—contains
volcanic features much younger than previously
thought. This does not affect the calculation of the
general age of the massive archiflegrean caldera
(see this link) that the
entire area rests in, but rather the later features
that erupted into prominence over the millennia
within that area, such as the Solfatara
(photo, above) and the volcanic island of Nisida. The Nisida volcano
might be less than 4,000 years old rather than
10,000, as previously held. This has importance for
those concerned with civil defense in what is now a
heavily populated area. The earthquake of 1980 and related aftershocks
were bad enough: the outskirt community of New
Pozzuoli had to be built to take refugees from the
stricken areas; the port of Pozzuoli had to be
rebuilt; etc. etc. Now emergency planners want to
know if the new calculations will translate into the
possibility that the entire area is potentially more
active than thought since it is younger than
thought. (For more on general geology of the area,
see the Underground
Naples Portal.)
- (April
8) Another "closed until
further notice" has popped up, this one at the Fontanelle cemetery, one
of the most well-known and characteristic sites in
Naples. It is arcane and weird on such a scale that
the city recently spent millions to renovate and
secure the premises in an attempt to attract a
tourist trade. It worked and was already starting to
show financial benefit in the surrounding Sanità quarter. The
cemetery (an ossuary, really) is in a large cavern,
one of many in or beneath Naples; the other day a
1,700 kg (about 3,500 pounds) piece of rock fell
from the ceiling just
inside the entrance!—that is, right where
tourists would have waiting to get in had it not
happened at about 3 am. So, they have rightfully
closed the Fontanelle with no word yet on how long
it will take to guarantee the structural integrity
of the premises. (update: Aug. 2011.
It has reopened.)
- (April
22) The police have
uncovered an interesting archaeological site—at
least potentially. It's a Roman mausoleum in
Pozzuoli. The discovery came when authorities
were digging around and about to close down an
illegal rubbish dump site of some 1,700 sq.
meters in area (about half an acre) where 58
tons of "special refuse" had been deposited.
That means that the refuse has been
separated—you know... bottles here, metal there,
paper over there. It was all over the Roman
site. I guess the good news is that at least the
dumpers separate their trash.
 (April 23)
Selene Salvi of Napoli Underground (NUG) is not only
a scholar, she's a cross between watch-dog and passionaria
when it comes to the topic of the tunnels, caves and
quarries beneath the city. Her latest article on the
NUG
website shreds yet another bit of urban
archaeology in the pages of the daily, il Mattino.
Their latest sensational and breathless discovery
has to do with the supposed "Templar" symbols, 12
crosses, discovered beneath the church of Santa Maria Maggiore
alla Pietrasanta and inscribed on the
walls of a mysterious underground tunnel that,
according to the paper, connects the church directly
to the lair of the infamous alchemist, the prince of
Sansevero, Raimondo di Sangro.
Except, says, Selene, that is nothing new. We've
been down there and filmed the crosses (link
to the NUG video from 2009), and there is no
evidence of exactly who put them there. Further, the
article misstates distances to create the impression
of a single specific tunnel between the church and
the residence of di Sangro ("all buildings in that
area are connected"); worse, it confuses historical
persons with similar names and says things that are
wrong, even inane, such as that the skull and
cross-bones, the "Jolly Roger," is a Templar symbol,
which it is not. Also, the "twelve crosses" would be
nice since that number has such obvious Christian
symbolism connected with it, but there are more
crosses than that. The journalist just thought it
would be a nice touch—"so Templarish,"
says Selene. In short, she says,
stop writing about what you know nothing about. (My
complete
translation of her article is here. Photo
courtesy of NUG. Here is a separate item about the Templars.)
- (April
28) -The Floridiana park, which
was closed late this month (see this link), has been
reopened, at least partially. Some areas may be
closed off until such time as the trees can be
determined to be safe—that is, that they
won't fall and kill someone.
-Hometown phiolopher, Giambattista
Vico, will be 343 years old in June. That
would not surprise him since he is the one who
pretty much invented the saying "What goes around,
comes around." He might be pleased to know that a
library will open in June right next to his
birthplace on via San Biagio dei librai. It
will, of course, be a Vichian library. Whether or
not he would like that adjective, I don't know; it
invites confusion with vichyste, a partisan
of the collaborationist Vichy regime in France in
WWII, itself inviting more confusion with Vichyssois,
residents of the city of Vichy—nowhere near via
San Biago dei Librai. But whoever said that
philiosophy was easy?
 (April 29)-The Capodimonte Royal Wood
is in the midst of a grand restoration project,
according to Guido Gullo, director of the grounds.
When the palace and grounds at Capodimonte were
originally laid out and built in the 1700s, farmland
was converted into a vast hunting reserve for the
royal family. The gardens and orchards within the
reserve became the source of highly sought-after
fruits and other produce. The current plan is to
restore 26,000 sq. meters (c. 6.5 acres) to its
original agricultural and horticultural use as well
as to make the area suitable for tourism.
 (April 30)-Bagnoli
and the Ruhr. In 2013 the Overseas
Fair Grounds (Mostra d'Oltremare) in Fuorigrotta
will host something called the "Culture Forum." One
of the themes will be the ongoing process of
converting the blight of post-industrialism—all the
closed and rusted factories, decayed waterfronts,
etc.—into pleasant bits of suburbia, places of
parks, shops, schools and homes where people will
want to live and tourists visit. One of the most
successful efforts in Europe has been the Ruhr
region in North Rhine-Westphalia in east-central
Germany. It is one of the most densely populated
areas in Europe and at one time one of the most
heavily industrialized. Over the last few decades,
"post-industrialization" has taken place, and the
Ruhr now has theaters, cultural centers, festivals
and museums (including what are now called
"industrial museums"). As a run-up to the Culture
Forum, a gentleman from the Ruhr, Hans-Dietrich
Schmidt, was in Naples the other day to explain the
"Ruhr model" to local officials and business persons
who would like to use that model for the further
development of Bagnoli, once site of the Italsider
steel works. Bagnoli has had some successes: a new theater, the North Pier, a
hands-on science museum and exposition ground called
Science City, a "Turtle Point"
extension of the Dohrn
Aquarium, a Maritime
Museum, etc. There have been failures as well,
such as the failure to lure the America's Cup
regatta to Bagnoli a few years ago, which would have
meant money for the construction of a suitable
harbor facility. Some things are still up in the
air, such as a proposed Bagnoli Green Park
and an industrial museum. I gather from various
sources that Herr Schmidt's presentation was a
pretty solid pep-talk. You need two things: money
and political will. One of those items alone won't
do the trick. Both might.
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