Naples Miscellaneous page 69 (start mid-February 2018)
link to all Miscellany pages
Feb 14 - This comes from Fulvio Salvi of Napoli Underground (NUg) who told me of his recent visit to Valongo, a small borgo (mountain town) near Naples, just up the coast and 10 km inland near Sessa Aurunca, not far from Caserta. Fulvio writes
Fortune led me to meet Giovanni Casale, who, together with his wife Dora, is the real "Deus ex machina" behind the rebirth of Valogno, which he himself describes as "a town 90 persons above sea level." It's a phrase he coined in order to underscore the fact that everyone in the village is contributing to rejuvenating the village--this from a population that is largely elderly... he told me of his project to transform with murals one of the places "...of our old South...to liven up the drab gray that is so often typical of our small towns" and turn it into a colorful and fanciful album of design.
I spent a few hours wandering among the small streets, courtyards, and the underground canteens, or looking up at the balconies and being surprised and delighted at the variety. It was rather like being a child again and paging through the old books of fairy tales that my father had conserved so carefully.
Here you see a few photos he took. The complete story plus dozens of other photos are on his NUg website here.
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Feb 14 - Today is Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's day, if you prefer. Things have not changed considerably since I first wrote about the celebration of this very un-Neapolitan tradition 15 years ago, here. Now, I think the gigantic heart-shaped boxes cost more than €50, but I'm afraid to ask. In the years that have passed, the holiday has been integrated into the cycle of all other holidays and most persons just assume that it has always been so. I saw late last night the crew down at the local coffee bar loading up for deliveries this morning. It used to be that one guy could do it on his bicycle. Now they hire a small van for the deliveries; it looked like 30 or 40 boxes. It's big business. Today, of course, is also Ash Wednesday. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, the last Big Blowout Day. Thus, today is the beginning of Lent, repentance; thus again, good Catholics shouldn't eat all that St. Valentine's Day chocolate. The last time St. Valentine's Day (Feb. 14) and Ash Wednesday occurred on the same day was in 1945 (!) and before that 1934, then 1923, and then 1877; the coincidence will occur again in 2024, then 2029 and then ...well it all depends on the fact that Easter is calculated using the lunar calendar, and no one except Jesus and maybe the Easter Bunny knows how to do that. I see some severe theological contradictions here and this worries me greatly. It's a good thing I'm not Catholic and don't like chocolate.
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Feb 22 - This is a surprisingly complicated website. The Council of Europe sponsors a number of tours of "discovery" under the rubric The Routes of the Phoenecians. There seem to be about a dozen itineraries. The main website is here. On that site I picked one at random, Hannibal's Pathway in Italy, but there are many others to choose from.
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Feb 23 -Just Another Roman "Gate to Hell"? Exotic? Yes. Strange? Yes. Familiar? Very.
The website of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science ran a piece the other day about the ancient Greco-Roman city of Hierapolis (pictured) in southwestern Anatolia (modern Turkey), calling it a "gate to hell." This particular gate is a stone doorway leading down to a small closed grotto, below which there was a deep fissure that emitted a visible and lethal mist of volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2). The area is still deadly and birds that fly too close suffocate and die. Says the AAAS,
During the day the sun’s warmth dissipates the gas. But at night the gas—slightly heavier than air—billows out and forms a CO2 “lake” on the sheltered floor. It is particularly deadly at dawn, when the CO2 concentration 40 centimeters above the floor reaches 35%, enough to asphyxiate and kill animals or even people within a few minutes.The site is adjacent to modern Pamukkale. There were a few such sites spread throughout the Roman Mediterranean and they achieved notoriety that was dealt with through appropriate rituals of propitiation and sacrifice. Modern Pamukkale is the site of popular open-air thermal bath located at one the region’s most geologically active areas.
This rings a bell to anyone familiar with popular Neapolitan tales surrounding the Grotto of the Dog and not faraway, the Solfatara volcano. The former led to Mark Twain's fanciful silliness (which you may read here) as well as to a very recent and real tragedy, reported here, a result of which is that the Solfatara site has been closed.
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Mar 11 -
Hiking Above the Amalfi Coast
My friends from Napoli Underground (NUg) have spent a few weekends over the winter hiking mountain trails along the Amalfi Coast, also known on the other side as the Sorrentine peninsula. It all depends on your point of view, obviously. It's a single peninsula with over a dozen communities spread through the Lattari Mountains, the highest peaks of which can run up to 1,400 meters/4200 ft. There are dozens of marked trails to chose from. The idea was to pick two points and hike from one to the other and back, wherever they had left their off-road vehicle. In this case they chose as their point of departure Santa Maria del Castello, a tiny community actually part of the Sorrento-side town of Vico Equense, but perched at 700 meters/2100 feet above the Amalfi-side resort town of Positano. They wanted to hike to the north-east (directly in back of the photographer) along the cliff trail to Mt. Catiello in an area called The Three Points and then turn around. Winter weather didn't cooperate and group leader Fulvio Salvi complained that they didn't even get halfway along the trail before they decided to stop. You are, after all, above steep cliffs and on trails that are slippery when wet. They only covered about 6 km/4 miles, but during occasional breaks in the weather, the view was stunning. He took this photo from directly over Positano (the mass of buildings at the bottom. After that, you see the entire final stretch of the Amalfi coast: in order, Li Galli islands, Vetara rock, Isca rock, and the isle of Capri hidden way off behind the clouds 20 km (12 mi) in the distance.
photo by NUgAdditional information on the Lattari mountains here and here.
Here is the original NUg article at their site with additional photos and information.
(That site is unfortunately no loner active. Sorry.)
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The Association of European Migration Institutions
Mar 15 - I call your attention to a very interesting website: AEMI, the Association of European Migration Institutions. In the interest of "creating public awareness and understanding of Europe's migrations: history and heritage," AEMI holds conferences at various sites and publishes an on-line journal of papers presented at those conferences. The most recent conference was in New York last month and was entitled Transnationalism and Questions of Identity, part of which was dedicated to "Italy in Movement." At the extreme right of their home page logo bar you will find "links", a long list of organizations that provide information, country by country, on migrations and access to data bases. If you are at all interested in what has been going on in Europe since Europe was Europe (about 1300 years ago ) and, indeed is still going on, spend some time on this site.
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Mar 19 -
The Varnishing!
Actually, it's called the vernissage, but my splendid translation makes it sound more like a fantasy horror film, just what you want if you're trying to draw folks into your art show! It's really the "pre-opening" of an art exhibit. The tradition started in the 1800s of staging a preview of the works of living artists. The name presumably comes from the fact that they used to give the paintings a final touch of varnish to protect the newer ones from heavy-handed (and low-brow) visitors just curious to see if the work was "still wet." The preview exhibits could be public or private; in the latter case, they were often called a "private view" in English.
My friends at Opus Continuum, a new art collective in Naples, after months of intense work opened their first exhibit yesterday. There were more people than they had hoped for, music, a short film and lots of paintings (image). It's all in the interest of promoting the medium of contemporary figurative art. (More details are on an earlier previous page, here.) The exhibit is called IMMAGINARIA 2018 and is on the premises of the Casina pompeiana (see item for March 21, directly below this one) on the grounds of the Villa comunale of Naples, the public park the seafront east of Mergellina. Runs to April 7. Free! Hours: 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. Closed Sunday.
Opus Continuum has a Facebook page with additional photos at https://www.facebook.com/Opuscontinuum/
In my day this is how people dressed for these things! Sigh...
A Private View at the Royal Academy, by William Powell Frith (1819-1909)
update - April 29: IMMAGINARIA 2018, has been extended until at least May 7. My friends at Opus Continuum
are very tired but very happy at the outcome. All sources report the exhibit to be a success and very well
received. Yesterday the organization announced its intention to carry on next year with another exhibit of
figurative art, tentatively called IMMAGINARIA 2019 - In the footsteps of Parthenope. (That update is here.)
update - May 7: as part of the yearly Monuments in May cultural blow-out during which the city's Parenting Persons
try to keep everything open and visitable for the entire month, IMMAGINARIA 2018 has been extended through May 31.
That word comes from Selene Salvi oneof the founders of Opus Continuum.
BIG UPDATE! MAY 21: Opus Continuum has announced that their organization now has a
"permanent home" on the premises of the Casina Pompeiana (item directly below), precisely where
they have been holding their IMMAGINARIA 2018 exhibition. This word comes from Selene Salvi, who added, "Permanent is a long time, but it worked. I tapped my ruby slippers together.
There's no place like home."
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The Casina Pompeiana
Mar 21 - This building is on the grounds of the long seaside park just east of Mergellina, the Villa Comunale of Naples, which was once upon a time the Royal Gardens. The building is on the north side of the park and along the inside road, Riviera di Chiaia. It is 300 meters in from the east entrance at Piazza della Vittoria and is just across the wide internal park promenade from the large Anton Dohrn aquarium and zoological station on the sea side of the park. It's the Casina Pompeiana (Pompei Lodge). Over the entrance is engraved "Belle Arti foundato nel 1861" [Fine Arts founded in 1861]. That is the year of the declaration of the new united kingdom of Italy and here is where the city committed itself to being a vibrant part of the artistic life of the new nation.
The Casina was built in a neo-classical style and originally called the Pompeiorama because it housed a permanent exhibit of paintings of Pompeii. The building was restored in 1891 and became the seat of the Polytechnical Art Society, which hosted regular exhibits. It continued its artistic activities up until shortly after the end of WWII, after which it stalled as the city got more and more involved in rebuilding from the war. Since 1997, however, it has once again been available to the city as a venue for cultural activities. It is spacious and practical. It houses the permanent Archives of Parthenopean [Neapolitan] Song, which stages regular concerts throughout much of the year). The Casina pompeiana is, at this writing, hosting a three-week art exhibit called IMMAGINARIA 2018 (see item directly above this one). It is gratifying to see cultural venues such as this overcome difficulties and survive.
images: top left and bottom right-Studio Dumontet; top right-Fulvio De Marinis
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Mar 24 - The image shows the most recent issue of Metro Week --free, large format newsprint, 7 pages stapled at the centerfold (thus, 28 pages). It's full of, and paid for by, tons of ads, and contains human interest tidbits and what's happening this week in Naples. This is issue #10 of their second year in business. They are stacked for the taking at most metro stops, so you'll have something to read while you wait for the train that never comes. Some of the human interest stuff is fun to read. The cover item, for example, "Solo note positive" (Only positive notes) tells us that the city is installing a dozen or so pianos around town (the ones in the image are at the colonnade of the church of San Francesco di Paola across Piazza del Plebiscito from the Royal palace. Anyone can just sit down and play. They've done this before. It gets very lively. Lots of fun. And here's an item about how they're going to spruce up the iconic Angevin Fortress (Maschio angioino) at the port. They do that a lot. Big tourist attraction. It pays to make it look nice. Wait a minute. "Bomb from the Great War found." That's World War One, kids. Yes, there was a war before number 2. It's strangely written and remarkably uninformative, no doubt penned (or thumbed) by a millennial for whom the 20-year gap between the World Wars means that it was just, like, all one big war, anyway, right, dude? The lead is: "On the 100th anniversary of the first bombing of Naples, a bomb from WW1 has been found in the Bourbon Tunnel." Then there's a picture of the members of the bomb squad holding (!) the bomb. The news item didn't just bury the lead, they left it out altogether. They make it sound as if this is unexploded ordnance from the first bombing of Naples, of which (read between the lines) there were many... (in WW1?). No, there weren't. There was exactly one. From a Zeppelin, and this thing they found has nothing to do with that. They've conflated World Wars 1 and 2. The real bombing of Naples (and it was considerable) was in WW2. So after leaving you to wonder how a bomb dropped on the city in WWI wound up in the Bourbon Tunnel, they reveal the disappointing fact that the city produced munitions for the First War and stored them down there. Interesting, I guess, but they missed the story. Oh, here's my train.
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Mar 25 - Nature Hikes from Napoli Underground (NUg)
This photo is an obvious relative of the one at "Hiking above the Amalfi Coast" (the fifth entry, for March 11, on this page, above). This one, however, is from an article in 2014 that I forgot to translate! (I am the primary translator for the organization.) The trekking stalwarts had set out to discover if this so-called "Trail of the Gods" was really all it's cracked up to be; that is, one of the most scenic, yet civilized, almost leisurely, enjoyable and totally do-able trails in all of Italy. Their conclusion? It is. I don't how I missed this one when they wrote it, but my complete translation is on their site here. And this link will take you to another page on the NUg site with a list of almost 50 articles I have translated for them over the last few years. Most are about the immediate area, but sometimes they go nuts and wind up elsewhere. Even in Iceland.
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Man Does Not Live by Casatiello Alone, but it's a Good Start
Mar 31- In Roman Catholic and most Protestant Christian communities, today is commonly known as Holy Saturday (Italian: Sabato Santo). It is the last day of Holy Week. There are other names depending on which Christian community you are taking about: Joyous Saturday, Easter Even, and others. Unsurprisingly it is also called the Saturday Before Easter. Don't confuse it with Easter Saturday, the Saturday after Easter. I don't think there is a culinary name for today but there probably should be, at least in Naples, since there are specific traditional foods for the days before Easter, and they may be specific to the day. That is, zuppa di cozze (mussel soup) has to be eaten on Thursday, absolutely. If you are allergic to hepatitis (as am I) avoid it, which I did. I'm not sure about the foods for the other days. There is something called la fellata, a plate of cold cuts and different cheeses, one of which unfortunately is salted (!) ricotta, which I don't like. Also, fellata, is the name of a pastoral and nomadic people of western Africa; they are traditionally cattle herders of the Muslim faith. This so confusing that I avoid that one, as well.
Being a language nut, I also avoid things with names I don't understand, such as minestra maritata. It's a broth with vegetables and a big chunk of meat in it. It does not mean "husband (marito) soup" and until I understand why not, I avoid that one, too. And so forth. Today, however, I shall chow myself down on Casatiello, a "rustic" cake, the opposite of "sweet" -- those are the two divisions for anything baked from bread dough. Casatiello has hard-boiled eggs in it (you peel those before eating them, I think). Also, bits of cheese and meat. The name is a diminutive of "home", thus a little home-cooked rustic cake. Mine will not be home-cooked, but hark! I hear the coach approaching on the cobble stones now. That'd better be my casatiello. It should look like the one in the image (above). If it doesn't or if I am still hungry, Orthodox Easter is next Sunday. I'll convert on Wednesday.
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Into Each Art Exhibit Some Human Interest Must Fall
Apr 16 - The good news is that the IMAGINARIA 2018 exhibit referred to above (entries for March 19 and 21) has had such an enthusiastic response that it is likely to be extended for a second time. The better news is that there is no bad news. But Selene has just sent me this potentially more good news:
(Later) This just in from Selene: "Mission completed. Just got back from the clinic. Indeed, a Collared Fly Catcher. Adult male. They'll let us know more in a few days."A strange thing happened yesterday. On the way down to the Casina we found a small bird at curbside on the Riviera di Chiaia. It was apparently injured and was jumping around, unable to fly. It was beautiful! I managed to pick it up carefully and carry it over to the Casina where we found a box to put it in. I called the LIPU [Italian League for the Protection of Birds] and they advised me to take it over to the veterinary clinic near the Frollone metro station. We found out that the little thing was a Collared Flycatcher [ficedula albicollis], quite rare. I read on the web: "The reproductive area of the Collared Flycather is eastern Europe. It is a migratory species and like all flycatchers undertakes a long and dangerous journey to reach its wintering area in Africa, almost always south of the equator." Who knows how it wound up at curbside along Riviera di Chiaia? Let's hope he makes it. Maybe he was just worn out from the journey or was wounded in some fashion. Tomorrow I'll give the vet a call. Their specialty is saving wild species. Let's hope for the best.
p.s. I have a good idea for a painting.
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"Stand by to Repel Brothers!"
Apr 20 -
If we could go back and hand this story to Gilbert and Sullivan, we might get a rousing, rollicking musical tale of the sea, a steam-punk H.M.S Pinafore up in far distant 2018. Indeed, what jolly good times they are bound to be! -- why, those lads will have electricity! balloon flights to the moon! contaminated water! Except it doesn't rollick very much, it isn't really that funny (for reasons that will become clear), and people aren't sure just what happened. At least not my neighbor. "They kicked a U.S. nuclear sub out of the port of Naples today. I saw it on TV," said friend Giacomo.
Not really. What he saw was an archive video of the USS John Warner (SSN-785) a Virginia-class submarine of the United States Navy. The image (below) shows the Warner in the Ionian Sea (that's the one below the boot of Italy) during a recent NATO exercise. She was commissioned on 1 August 2015. The vessel supports 40 weapons, special operations forces, and unmanned undersea vehicles. The Virginia-class attack submarine is the U.S. Navy’s newest undersea warfare platform and has the latest in stealth, intelligence gathering and weapons systems. Attack submarines are designed to seek and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships as well as project power ashore with Tomahawk cruise missiles. She has virtually unlimited range. The hull classification SSN stands for "submarine, nuclear," meaning it is powered by a nuclear reactor. About a month ago, the Warner fired six Tomahawk cruise missiles in strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities.
The only lighthearted moment was that the archive video Giacomo saw was accompanied by a narration of the correspondence between Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris and Rear Admiral Arturo Faraone, head of the city's port authority. The mayor complained that the admiral had given this very same vessel permission to pass through the Gulf of Naples on March 20, following a two-week NATO exercise. Then the mayor said that he [the mayor] had "designated the city a denuclearized zone [and] prohibited docking and parking of any vessel that is nuclear-powered or contains nuclear weapons" and had declared Naples a "city of peace." The admiral responded that "decisions regarding the arrival and/or transit of foreign military naval units in national territorial waters" did not fall under the mayor's jurisdiction, but that of the Italian Ministry of Defense. The admiral pointed out that the USS John Warner had not entered the port of Naples, itself, but had passed about three and a half miles out from the port last month and then left from Gibraltar ahead of the attack on Syria. Further messages from the Defense Ministry reminded the mayor that Italy and the U.S. are both part of the NATO alliance bound by treaty and Status of Forces agreements and not by municipal declarations of kumbayah peace, love & benevolence. Italy provided steadfast logistical support for the strikes in Syria.
It was evident that the mayor knew he had no real power in this and was just "making a statement." Such no-nuke declarations mean different things in different places and circumstances. Some sovereign nations (New Zealand, Palau, etc.) have the power to say no to nukes and have done so. But the mayor of Naples knows (I hope) that his city is not a sovereign state. He said that he felt an obligation to speak out and that he has a right to do so. He does.
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Apr 27 - Wow! This is a great shot of the aerobatic team of the Italian airforce, the tricolore frecce (tricolor arrows) taken the other day (April 25) on Italian Liberation Day. They came up from Capodichino airport, to the south over the bay of Naples, turned and flew in from the west and swung north over the small port of Meta (in image) on the Sorrentine peninsula (Sorrento is the last bunch of buildings in the background). This is the standard nine-plane formation that releases the colors, three planes to a color, flying Aermacchi MB-339PAN training planes. (Not visible in the image is the 10th plane, called the "soloist", up there somewhere waiting to show off.) As a trainer, the planes have space for a student and an instructor in the cockpit. As an aeronautic stunt team, there is only a single pilot in each plane Their trademark is to release the three-color emblem that represent the colors of the Italian national flag. The photo was taken from Monte Chiaro, above Meta. Many thanks to Larry Ray for this image. The original photo is by Guido Di Cresce, a member of Realismo Contemporaneo Napolitano.
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"Return with us now to those thrilling days of Yestersail!"
May 11 - Boats of the Bay 2018 -
"Well, blow me down..." I wish I had said ...or at least "shiver me timbers... that's a three-masted gaff-rigged schooner!" I had squinted out across the bay at Capri and seen what you see in this image: the Atlantic under full sail, running across the bay of Naples to moor at Mergellina harbor in the late afternoon sun. That is not even a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'm not sure it has ever happened before at all. I can now throw away my camera.
In one sense it's spooky. The Atlantic was built in 1903 and set the record for the fastest transatlantic passage under sail in the 1905 Kaiser's Cup race. The record remained unbroken for nearly 100 years. Length: 69.40 m (227.7 ft); Beam: 8.85 m (29.0 ft); Draught: 4.90 m (16.1 ft) Sail plan: 1,720 m2 (18,500 sq ft). There is, however, an unspooky part: This Atlantic is not a time-machine. It's a replica, a precise replica. In real life, the vessel, besides being the most beloved schooner of all time, saw service in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard in both World Wars and passed through a number of private owners. At the end she deteriorated (as we all must) and sank at the dock in Norfolk, Virginia, and finally, in January, 1982, she was broken up at Newport News Boat Harbor, Virginia. Sad, really. Scrapped after an illustrious life. The original rudder is at the Museum of Yachting in Newport, Rhode Island. Yet the replica is fine! She was built in the Netherlands and completed in June 2010, and is a rental yacht. This is the one you want. Expenses be damned! Book for the entire season and send my friend, Bill, the tab. "...and though/ We are not now that strength which in old days /Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are..." My timbers are shivering again.
[Also see June 7, below]
[General Boats of the Bay page is here.]
[Also see April 20, above. I suppose it fits in here somewhere.]
[later Boats items are here and here, both from July, 2018]
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May 22 - Textiles from Pompeii - At some point in 2019 the National Archeological Museum of Naples will team up with the architecture and industrial design department of the University of Campania's Vanvitelli campus (formerly known as 2nd University of Naples) to put on an exhibit of Roman textiles. In preparation for the exhibit the Museum has just presented a preview at the recent biennial Art and Restoration Fair (Salone dell'Arte e del Restauro) in Florence. They showcased findings from examination of 150 artifacts of fibers and fiber arts from the Roman imperial period, largely from Pompeii and the areas covered by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The objects included a wooden spool with silk thread, a handbag, and samples of textiles such as linen, wool, and hemp. The planned exhibit in Naples next year must await restoration of the objects, which the Naples museum has put in the hands of the OPD (Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro / Workshop for Hard Stones Inlay (Marquetry) and Laboratories for Restoration, the Italian Cultural Ministry's main institute for restoration. It is in Florence and has expanded its restoration efforts beyond those that might seem indicated in the name, to include paintings, statuary, tapestry, parchment, etc. The museum director stressed the importance of displaying the "softer" dimension of life in the ancient Roman world.
(Many thanks to Jeff Miller for this information.)
The image shows a maenad wearing a silk gown. In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers
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Saving Seneca
May 25 - The vast premises of the Girolamini library, art gallery, and church near the Duomo (cathedral), are described here. The library, in particular, has a history of theft of manuscripts and rare books, and incompetent administration, including criminal activity by members of the staff, one episode of which, five years ago, is described here. The institution has just dodged a bullet, according to a local paper, probably because they left precious illuminated manuscripts from the 1300s of the tragedies of Seneca* (image) sloppily lying around instead of locked away (where thieves surely would have looked). So the good guys found them and stored them away properly and a limited edition is now being prepared for publication. These manuscripts are among the library's most prized possessions and have enormous cultural and historical value. (*Seneca the Younger, c. 4 BC – AD 65, fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca.) For about one year, the fortunes of the library have been in the hands of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (Italian: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo - MiBACT) which has instituted courses in the History and Philology of Manuscripts and Ancient Books. There must be something in the curriculum about where to store manuscripts.
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Jun 3 - Naples is home to a particular breed of horse called the Napoletano. Modern equestrian schools in the Campania region of Italy have their origins in the tradition of breeding this ancient and noble animal for many centuries. The Sportsman's Dictionary in 1800 says:
This horse is highly esteemed for his strength and courage, which, together with his gentle dispositions, make him valued. His limbs are strong, and well knit together; his pace is lofty, and he is very docile for the performance of any exercise...The action is elegant, pronounced and majestic, the temperament lively, bold and generous.According to the breed standard, the Napoletano may be bay, black, "burnt chestnut" or grey, and must stand at least 150 cm (14.3 hands) (59 in.) at the withers [the highest point of the back, located between the shoulder blades]. (This image is from 2014.)
Yet, by 1950 the breed was almost extinct. One of the last stallions wound up as a foal in the hands of Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and then belonged to a Serbian farmer. That horse was later imported back into Italy, and recent attempts to bring back the breed apparently stem from that single transaction. In 2005 a total population of 20 mares and 4 stallions was registered. In 2007 the status of the Napoletano was still listed as critical by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Much of the credit for bringing back the Napoletano goes to Giuseppe Maresca of Piano di Sorrento where he founded his Academy of Equestrian Arts, including a stable and stud farm.
Two of these animals were presented at the Casina pompeiana in the Villa Comunale the other day.There was "Sibilla", a delicate and demure mare, and then there was a high-spirited and very nervous stallion, "Napul'è" (named after a song by Pino Daniele). All this was happening right next to the art exhibit (mentioned above at the item for March 21, so Selene stood by to make sure that the stallion didn't ride rough-shod through the artwork.) A lecture was given on the history of the breed and vows were made by those at City Hall, (a Dude Ranch, if ever there was one!) to resurrect the Renaissance Aragonese Riding Academy. I love the idea, but I'll believe that one when it gallops up and whinnies at me. (Friend Larry says "a smart Neapolitan entrepreneur
should have a large broom on hand to collect and quickly package individual turds in small colorful plastic bags, each tied with a tricolore ribbon. Then a squadron of cute street-savvy youngsters, dressed as jockeys, would hustle visitors in the park to buy their very own memento of the once nearly extinct Napolitano."
(The Campania is also known for two other special breeds, the Persano and the Salernitano.)
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Jun 7 - Boats of the Bay 2018 - This ship is currently anchored off the Chiaia shoreline between the Egg Castle and Mergellina. She is La Grace, an authentic replica of a brig from the second half of the 1700s. A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 1700s and early 1800s. The construction of La Grace was based on blueprints published by Swedish Admiral Fredrik Henrik af Chapman (1621-1689) in his Architectura navalis mercatoria.* Chapman is credited with laying the foundations of modern shipbuilding, relying on precise blueprints and even the use of "batch" production of interchangeable parts; that is, an assembly-line approach to shipbuilding (this, many, many years before the "Liberty ships" of WWII!)
*Chapman's work holds 62 original plans and comments on ship building. All of the drawings (plates) are available for download at the website of the extraordinary Stockholm Maritime Museum (Sjöhistoriska Museet).
La Grace sails under the flag of the Czech Republic and the crew is mostly Czech. This is explained by the fact that the above-mentioned Chapman served Sweden but was born near Prague in what was then Bohemia. Besides building ships, he was a cartographer and explorer. (Prague has centuries of shipbuilding history. It is on the Moldau / Vlatava river. The Moldau flows into the Elbe which runs northwest through Germany into the North Sea at Cuxhaven.) After two years of construction, La Grace was launched in 2010 from yards in Alexandria, Egypt. This modern replica is used to teach the art of old-time seamanship to guests who go aboard. Replica, in this sense, does not mean "scale model." La Grace has the precise dimensions of the original. Many of the "tall ships" that one sees in the frequent regattas around the world are not replicas, either. They are, in fact, originals, built probably in the 1920s or 30s as training vessels for various national navies. A replica may or may not be seaworthy. If the vessel is going to be tied up in some port as a museum or school, it may not matter. But if she is going to sail the seas, then great care must be taken. Some films use true replicas. The 1984 film, The Bounty, did that. That same ship then went on to sail in Master and Commander in 2003.
La Grace has 6 double bed cabins in the central and stern part of the vessel. She has a diesel engine, modern electronics, safety systems, and sanitary features. Call sign: OL5614; Length: 23.8 m (78.1 ft); Height, 25 m (82.0 ft) (waterline to top of rig height).
Sail plan: brig, 364 m2 (3,918.1 sq ft). [There is a later (2021) entry on La Grace here.]
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A Lesson from Alfred, the NigerianThis appeared in la Repubblica on June 9, 2018. I translated it without waiting for permission to do so because it contains an important message of tolerance and understanding in these -- as the author says -- "unhappy times." -jm
by Giovanni Marino
While Salvini, at the head of the new government, proclaims that for immigrants "the free ride [pacchia*] is over," in a corner of Naples a 39-year-old Nigerian is cleaning up filth and litter in the small grassy patches and flower beds along the street. He does this often. He works quietly, and those who live on via Giulio Cesare now look at him with respect and admiration. A number of them walk over and thank him as well, with a few euros. Alfred has had a rough life; he landed at the aid station and reception center on the island of Lampedusa in one of those leaky so-called boats from north Africa. He is married and is the father of three children. But he has ambitions. He wants a job. He speaks with a balance of clarity and wisdom so lacking in many politicians in these unhappy times:
If you don't work, you grow weak, and when you are weak you can hurt someone. But if you have something to do, that won't happen. You won't be a criminal.So to be useful and have something to do, he spent a bit of the money he once panhandled from passers-by and bought a broom, a scoop, gloves and bags for what he clears away. He does this while he waits for a real job. Alfred's story is not an isolated case. It shows us yet again that immigrants are a resource that should be invested in and taken into the fabric of our society. Alfred may not know the slang word "pacchia"*, but he does know the meaning of 'precarious' and 'uncertain'.
*note: The word is sometimes translated with the adjective "cushy", as in a "cushy job."
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Jun 18 -This large table-top model (image, right) of the ruins of Pompeii is one of the permanent exhibits at the National Archeological Museum (NAM). It's an amazing work. In terms of craftsmanship, it fits in with the better known tradition of scale-model building such as the presepe, the Christmas manger scene. The scale is 1:100. The principle materials used were cork, plaster, and paper. The original idea for the model came from archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli, who was an inspector at the Pompeii site, itself, right after the unification of Italy (1861) and then curator of the NAM from 1863 to 1875. The model was begun in the 1860s and took decades to finish. There were a number of artisans at work on it over the years, all of them from families whose stock in trade was model building of such sites as Herculaneum and many others. It was largely finished by 1911, when one archaeologist called it "an exact representation of the layout of the ruins of Pompeii."
The model was taken apart and moved in sections a number of times during World War Two when air-raids on the city were frequent. It was finally reassembled and put in the NAM on permanent display in 1950 (look for room XCVI -- not 96!). The only caveat might be that it does not represent recent discoveries, say, of buildings or sections of Pompeii that have only recently come to light, but the museum has digital displays and videos to supplement the model.
END of Misc. p.69
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