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The
Subsoil
of Naples
[This is my translation of the
introduction to Il Sottosuolo di Napoli
(The Subsoil of Naples), a book commissioned
and published by the city of Naples in 1967.
The entire 500-page work in the original
Italian has recently been scanned and made
available in .pdf format on the website
of Napoli Underground by whose kind
concession this translation appears. The Subsoil of
Naples is, simply, about the
problems of building and overbuilding in
Naples. It was and remains an exhaustive
compendium of general geology, the geology
of Naples, urbanology and social commentary.
Though The
Subsoil of Naples is more than 40
years old, it is by no means dated and bears
careful reading with respect to the things
that have changed and, above all, have not
changed since this introduction was written.
So
far,
I have translated only this introduction.
With time, I hope to make more material
available from the book. (Again, with time,
a complete English translation of Il Sottosuolo
di Napoli will be available on the
Napoli Underground website.) I have added
occasional bracketed comments as
“translator’s notes” and am responsible for
any errors or mistranslations. I appreciate
comments and corrections. The image that
appears in this version, below, is not from
the original work. —Jeff Matthews]
update: May 25, 2010. Completed
translation is off-site, here.
For
other
material on the topic of underground Naples,
see that portal
index.]
The
Subsoil
of Naples
 A
flood of houses has submerged Naples to an
incredible degree. The hills have been
assaulted, the greenery destroyed—the entire
area victim of building speculators. Whoever
now views Naples from the sea stares at a
giant cement presepe [ed. note:
the traditional Neapolitan manger display at
Christmas] clinging to a desolate
tuffaceous cliff. [ed. note: tuffaceous
is the adjective from tuff, a
characteristic rock in Naples; it is porous
and usually stratified, and formed by the
consolidation of volcanic ash and dust.]
This is Naples today, once preferred by Virgil
and praised by Goethe. It is a Naples that in
the 18th century, driven by the sensational
discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum,
blossomed in its role as “capital” and started
to expand slowly with a few villas along the
Chiaia, first towards Posillipo, then still a
wooded area, and then with villas towards the
green and open plain leading to Portici. It
wasn’t until 1812 that Murat, violating the
enchanted silence of Posillipo and her
villages, decided to create the now “must see”
path, the panoramic road that joins Villa
Donn’Anna to the Cape. The luxuriant woods and
vineyards, a sweeter and more human Naples,
where an outing into the countryside of San
Giacomo dei Capri [ed. note: an area
in the Vomero section of Naples]
meant leaving the populated areas of the city
behind—all that is actually still within
living memory.
This evil manipulation of Naples is really
quite recent and is a result of the cultural
and moral depression that has come over the
city in this post-war period. Within a
well-defined period of time, starting in the
1950s, serious and irreversible alterations
have been allowed in one of the most scenic
areas in the world; orderly urban development
has been compromised, and the safety and lives
of the citizenry have been blindly put at
risk. Standing in the way of this havoc have
been the protests of some urbanologists,
intellectuals and politicians, whose voices
have grown ever louder in an attempt to match
the increasing frenzy of the despoilers.
But
if
reason, a sense of civic duty, and a love of
Naples have failed at all levels of
responsibility to halt this violent spread of
housing speculation, there is now a new and
decisive element in the problems of the city
that makes it necessary to change the way we
have been doing things. As this report will
abundantly make clear in the pages that
follow, it is something that absolutely cannot
be delayed; it has to do with the safety of
our populated areas and how that safety is
affected by what lies below the surface of our
city.
We
know
today, on the basis of this particularly
interesting scientific study of great
technical importance, that a great overload,
both static and hydraulic, has been brought to
bear on the ancient (or inadequate)
infrastructure of our city by irrational and
chaotic urban expansion over the last twenty
years. We now know with certainty that the
tipping point, at least in some determined
areas that have been in balance, is not far
off. Earth slides, cave-ins and sink-holes
are, unfortunately, not new in the history of
Naples, but the alarming frequency of these
episodes over the last few years as well as
the nature of these episodes, especially in
the hill areas, is the result of a systematic
and progressive deterioration of the
supporting subsoil of the city. The
underground cavities of all shapes and sizes
that have been well identified in parts of the
city aggravate this situation of precarious
balance, but they are not, in general, the
primary cause.
This
alarming diagnosis has been formulated with
scientific rigor by the Commission for the
Study of the Subsoil of Naples; the commission
has passed on to the city administration a
series of important technical and
urbanological recommendations and proposals.
The concluding report by the commission will
be of great interest to specialists both in
Italy and abroad, but for everyone, the report
is a valuable lesson and a grave warning.
It seems obvious at this point that the
remedies for the damage caused by a past full
of errors, thoughtlessness and abuse, are not
to be found simply in a list of regulations
and prioritized public works aimed at
restoring conditions of safety to the city.
Those remedies, above all, have to be
undertaken within the vaster context of an
urban restructuring of the city, which the
center-left city administration has been
cautiously working out. There is no one who
cannot see that most of the problems are due
to persistent lack of modern and functional
urban regulation, regulation that goes back to
1939 and that is no longer adequate.
That basic evaluation, in fact, sums up
precisely the present-day conditions and the
situation in which we find ourselves. The
investigation of the subsoil of Naples was
promoted and carried out by the center-left
administration of the city, and work towards a
new regulatory plan is well underway. All of
the material, appropriately coordinated,
should be finished in the first months of the
coming year.
We emphasize that these plans represent a
clear about-face with respect to the ways in
which these problems have been dealt with in
the past. Correct and responsible
administrative action will finally assure the
city of decent urban, economic and social
development based on a cohesive view of the
problems and their solutions.
It is now time to move from the stage of
premises and planning to actually getting the
job done. Naples has to be restructured for
the generations that are to come; we must give
back to the city her safety, her breath, her
greenery and prestige. It is a task that will
require a collective commitment by cultural
and technical forces as well as by the forces
of labor, all sustained by decisive will power
on the part of politicians.
The valiant technicians who undertook this
study of the subsoil of Naples have dedicated
this basic work to the coming generation of
the 1980s and those who shall be on the
frontier of civilization and progress. As head
of the commission and, above all, as a
Neapolitan, I know I speak for the entire
citizenry when I express my gratitude to them.
This work will not be canceled by time or by
men but shall remain a secure guide to the
reconstruction of the city and serve to warn
the future as well as accuse the past.
Naples, October
1967,
[Signed]
Bruno
Romano
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