entry May 2003, update 2009
(1) Posillipo (below) & (2) Villa Rosebery (here)
One
of the advantages of living in a big city on a
seacoast is that you don't have to hunt down green
urban oases to get away from it all. Those patches
do exist in Naples, to be sure —the Villa Comunale, the Floridiana, the Vineyard of San Martino
, the grounds of the Botanical
Gardens or the Museum
of Capodimonte— but the quickest way is just
to get on a boat, preferably a two-hour cruise up
the Posillipo coast to the Isle of Nisida and back,
but even a ferry boat along the same route over to
the island of Ischia will do. Even a row boat —but
get out there.
The prominent
city landmarks such as the San
Martino Museum, the Castel
Sant'Elmo, the Royal
Palace, the Angevin
Fortress, the Castel
dell'Ovo (Egg Castle) are all immediately
viewable from the harbor or shortly after rounding
the breakwater and moving west. At the end of the
seaside park called the Villa Comunale is the small
harbor of Mergellina,
mentioned in documents from the 13th-century and
besung in a number of Neapolitan Songs. The actual
meat of the excursion, however, is the long stretch
of the Posillipo hill and coastline.
This
is a detail of a larger Photochrom print from
around the year 1900. The Villa Rosebery
is in the
green patch of trees at water's edge just
left of
center. Note that the rest of the
Posillipo coast is
practically undeveloped, a state that did
not change
very much until the overbuilding splurge
after WWII.
See large
lithograph here.)
The
Greeks first named the rocky, wooded height at the
western end of the Bay of Naples Pausylipon,
meaning "place where unhappiness ends". The area
remained largely undeveloped until a road, via
Posillipo, was built between 1812-24. That road
starts at sea-level at the Mergellina harbor and
moves up the coast, roughly parallel to the shore,
but it actually angles up for over two miles to the
cliffs some 200 meters above sea level at the cape
overlooking the isle of Nisida.
Additionally, the road angles in as it rises along
the cliff; thus, by the time it wends its path to
the cape, it has put a broad slope of land between
itself and the sea. That is the slope, the broad
swath of land, that you see as you glide west along
the coast. Towards the end of the Posillipo hill,
near the cape, some of the land is still farmland
and under active cultivation.
The immediate
impression today along the whole stretch is of
disastrous overbuilding. That impression corresponds
100% to the post-war reality of the area. Photos from
the early 1900s (image, above, left)
show a still largely wooded area with farmhouses
scattered on the slope and villas along the coast. It
is, however, rewarding to keep your eye on the string
of villas that are at the waters edge (top photo).
They are among the most exclusive bits of property in
Naples and always have been; that is, near the cape,
there are Roman ruins at water's edge. Higher up along
the cliff face, just before the cape, you can even see
the openings of the air-shafts that ventilated the
Seiano Grotto that led to the residence
of Vedius Pollio and even catch a glimpse of his
amphitheater on a height. The houses at water's edge
all have at least small piers or landings, and there
are even a few small coves with breakwaters along the
way. These small harbors are the nuclei for separate,
named communities such as Marechiaro and Gaiola.
update:
May 2009
Among the many residences, fabled and not
so, along the coast, one that most attracts the eye
is the Villa Rosebery (photo, right), a
fifteen-acre estate about half-way up the Posillipo
coast. The grounds are the official residence of the
president of the Republic of Italy when he visits
Naples. The estate rises over 100 feet from sea
level to the back of the property.
Villa Rosebery has a very mixed history. In
1801, an Austrian admiral in the fleet of Bourbon
Naples, Josef von Thurn (one of the officers on the
court-martial board that condemned Caracciolo to death
in 1799—click here) bought
the land and built on it. It was confiscated by the
Bonaparte government of Murat
in 1806 but returned to the admiral after the
Restoration in 1815. The admiral sold the property,
and in 1857 it came into the hands of Luigi di
Borbone, the brother of the king of Naples. He called
the property la Brasiliana in honor of his
wife, the sister of the emperor of Brazil.
At the unification of Italy and the exile of
the Bourbons, the property went through a succession
of sales and in the 1890s was bought by Archibald
Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929), and
British Prime Minister for the short Liberal
stewardship of the government in 1895. He was witty,
articulate, gave his name to this beautiful estate on
the Posillipo coast, fashioned much of the property
along the lines of an English garden, and then
generously donated the property to the Italian state.
Among his other notable achievements, Archie owned and
raced horses and was apparently the only man to win
the Derby while serving as Prime Minister. (He wasn't
the jockey, I don't think, but he did own the
horse.)
The property was used
sporadically in the 1930s as a residence by the Italian
royal family when they were in Naples. After WWII, the
Villa Rosebery was requisitioned briefly by the Allies,
then used for a few years by the Italian Air Force
Academy; finally, in 1957 it was declared one of the
official presidential residences in Italy.The heavily wooded estate is dotted with a few buildings such as the Grande Foresteria, (where the president stays) the Seaside Cottage (down at the harbor, photo, left) and a smaller guest house, still referred to—in spite of the anachronism—as the "Bourbon Palace" (photo, above, left).
(also see "Old communities of Posillipo")
(also see "The Sea of Posillipo")
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