“One of he real wonders regarding traveling is the profound defiance of diminishing returns. There is always more novelty and mystery in the world. Vastness and the unseen impress themselves again and again.” – Old Sean
A Bustle Again
Following my time in Portici, a small town in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius along the coast of Italy, I made my way to Naples.
Technically, I’ve passed through Naples before. But I’ve never spent any meaningful amount of time in the city. For me, this was a fresh corner of the world to explore.
Unsurprisingly, I flinched a little bit from the sheer volume and activity of Naples. The older I get, the less I feel accustomed to sounds and intensity. The city of Naples is, in a word, energetic. Slow flow of tourists do their endless loops while locals to their best to veer around them. I got off my train to lurch, slightly overwhelmed, thorugh the narrow streets towards several mildly pre-planned destinations.
Past Portals and Presepe
I started my journey by dodging through a dense outdoor market and walking through Porta Nolana, one of the remaining medieval city gates in Naples. One through, I doggedly marched down the street, angling towards La Via dei Presepi.
Unsurprisingly, Naples is netted by a tangle of shopping streets. Many of these are designed for walking, but there are a variety which allow scooters and cars to carefully putter through.
I confess, my time researching Naples was limited. I didn’t put a lot of time considering the various aspects of the city, instead relying on a list created by a friend. So I was quite curious when I started seeing Presepe (or Presepi, I’ve seen it both ways) in front of shops.
Presepe is the Italian word for a nativity scene or Christmas crib, otherwise known as a manger. This scene, which graces so many churches worldwide in December, depicts an infant Jesus Christ surrounded by his mother Mary, Joseph, the Three Wise Men, numerous animals and perhaps some additional angles accenting the baby’s divinity.
The tradition of creating Presepe harkens back to the year 1223, when St Francis built a manger in a cave in Greccio. He constructed his work using real animals and people to celebrate Christmas Eve mass. There were claims of miracles, so those of the Christian faith began reenacting the nativity spread yearly.
Naples, in particular, has built upon this tradition in an impressive fashion. The city has a history of creating intricate, hand-carved Presepe using painted figurines, wooden structures, careful designs and terracotta props. The tradition has extended far beyond depicting just Nativity scenes. Now, there are portrayals of daily life, other Christian scenes, nods to pop culture and towering, glass-encased models.
As a result, there are entire streets in Naples lined with miniture houses and small, warm lights. It makes walking the streets a powerfully slow process. Tiny, immaculate details forever capture attention, slowing down walkers substantially.
There are also numerous tourist trinkets that line the streets, unique to Naples. Many of these are bright red ceramics with long spirals vaguely reminiscent of a bishop’s hat. There are other figurines, showing religious icons, the Virgin Mary, percussion instruments with intricate paintings of Naples scenery and wonderfully creepy masks. Overstating the number of tiny, fascinating details found in these numerous artworks is, frankly, impossible.
Clash of Colors
The entire visual display was further increased by the holiday season. Green decorations with red ribbons had been strung over shops and alleys, heralding the imminent arrival of Christmas. Also native to Naples were the white and blue banners of Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli, commonly referred to as Napoli. This sports club promotes the internationally recognized football team.
While the intensity of the duel festivities of soccer and Christmas were interesting, the colors were humorously inverse to one another. They nudged each other for visual dominance, crowding out the other pair of hues depending on the street or alley.
There was something strange about the entire vibe. Between depictions of crosses, Christmas wreaths, weak daytime Christmas lights and Nativity scenes, I was constantly prodded into recognizing an inbound holiday season. But with the equally prominence of blue banners, white ribbons, Italian flags and the stoic faces of champion soccer players, it was hard to quantify which celebration was more anticipated.
I suspect football. If there’s one thing that traveling might teach us, it’s that football has an international stranglehold on sporting culture in a startling number of cultures.
Haunt of the Doll Hospital
While I generally research my trips deeply, I love random wanderings which turn up true oddities.
In this case, I ducked into a yellow plaza right off a major street. Within, I was treated to an odd display. There was a Doll Hospital, specifically known as The Doll Hospital of Via San Biagio dei Librai.
This tiny shop was crammed with a range of dolls, including babies, puppets, plastic dolls, porcelain creations, stuffed toys, Cabbage Patch Kids, headless doll bodies, pattered decapitated heads, the occasional masked figure and more.
It was spectacular. Creepy, unsettling and bizarre. But undoubtedly a collection fully capable of evoking tingles.
A wooden rocking horse with bright paint and intricate designs sat out front, completely separate from the vibe within. Novelty like this is best stumbled across.
After my time being joyfully creeped out, I went onwards down Via S. Gregorio Armeno, otherwise known as the Christmas Street. This also brought me past Spaccanapoli and a series of grandiose churches.
A small disclaimer. While the churches in Italy are utterly stunning creations and points of mind-blowing artwork, I tend to get church-fatigue quite rapidly when traveling. There are a lot of beautiful churches in Italy. But it’s virtually impossible to stop at all of them in any sort of timely manner.
So despite the beauty of several passed churches, most notably Complesso Museale Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco, I continued on my way, quickly seeking out a place to eat.
The winner of that short hunt was La Locanda Del Grifo – Pizza & Restaurant, where I ordered a massive pizza for myself and deliberately ate the whole thing.
If there was ever a time and place to adhere to a diet, it’s not during an Italian vacation.
Veiled in Soft Stone
Following my lunch, I turned south, passing a series of mask artworks and shops. I was specifically seeking out a place known as Sansevero Chapel Museum. This site was the subject of a-many conversations during my high school Art History class.
Sansevero Chapel Museum is home to one of the most masterful creations of stonework in all of history. Known as the Veiled Christ, the centerpiece of Sansevero displayed the shrouded body of Christ following his death. The amount of detail is borderline impossible, somehow catching features “through” the upper layer of stone, making rock itself seem translucent.
Crafted by Neapolitan artist Giuseppe Sanmartino, the creation was the keystone art piece commissioned by the eccentric, genius prince, Raimondo di Sangro.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that the Veiled Christ, for all its glory, isn’t the only thing within Sansevero Chapel Museum that merits a long stare of wonder. There are numerous other features that defy visual acceptance. For example, the masterwork Modesty, which Raimondo di Sangro dedicated to the memory of his “incomparable mother”, Cecilia Gaetani d’Aquila d’Aragona, stands overwatching the Veiled Christ. Once again, the artist masterfully creates a sensation of translucence in solid stone, further enhanced by smooth, natural motion.
The other trinity masterpiece of the Chapel Museum is named Il Disinganno, Disillusion or Release from Deception, created by Genoese artist Francesco Queirolo. The statue portrays a man breaking free from a delicate, elaborately carved net of stone, helpfully assisted by the presence of a winged angel. The ropes seem to bend and fall naturally, each fiber carefully etched into impossible beauty.
There are numerous other statues within the Chapel Museum. Sincerity, Self-Control, Liberality, Education, Decorum, Religious Zeal and other all are profoundly eye-catching works in their own right. But the trio of artistic stars within the Chapel Museum are impossible to outshine.
The rest of the building is filled with odd patterns, alchemical designs and strange features that mystify. The entire building has a purpose to it, where everything seems somehow aligned. Labrinth patterns in stones are strange and numerous. Additionally, there are some uniquely horrifying attractions known as The Anatomical Machines, which portray the skeletons of a man and a woman in upright position with their arteriovenous system almost perfectly intact.
The display is unsettling and riveting. Created by Palermo doctor Giuseppe Salerno, the two Anatomical Machines are certainly the most enigmatic exhibits in the Chapel Museum. The creations were painstakingly designed, showcasing the arteriovenous system down to even the finest vessels, displaying incredibly advanced anatomical knowledge for the time.
All of these masterworks are centered around the will and ambitions of Raimondo di Sangro Prince of Sansevero. Known to history as a accomplished soldier, a learned man of letters, a successful publisher and the first Grand Master of Neapolitan Masonry, he was most famed as an inventor, patron of the arts and promoter of the sciences. The prince was responsible for new bodies of knowledge emerging in chemistry to hydrostatics, and typography to mechanics,
Profoundly secretive, Prince Raimondo was immersed in secrets, making him one of the most profoundly interesting figures to ever be associated with Naples.
A final note: The Sansevero Chapel Museum, for all its glory and wonder, doesn’t allow photography. While understandable, this means that the majority of clear images showing these wonders can only be found on the Chapel Museum’s website.
Plaza to Point to Plaza
Following my time in the museum, which left me feeling large discombobulated, I moved onwards. Wandering Naples aimlessly has wonderful merits. There are endless places to window-shop and plaza spaces are grand for their space, cobbled roads and monuments.
My only regret is that my route caused me to bypass Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara. Supposedly, this is a compelling religious complex with some amazing sights within. By the time I realized I had inadvertently skipped it, my footsteps taking me well past the attraction.
However, there were other things I got to see. Complesso Monumentale Sant’Anna dei Lombardi was quite impressive, as were the imposing walls of Castel Nuovo. Quartieri Spagnoli, a tiny-street neighborhood with endless shops and crowded cars, allowed me to sip at some exceptionally dense and delicious hot chocolate.
Further along, I passed through the center of Galleria Umberto I, marveling at the decorations and shops within. Quite nearby stood the Royal Palace of Naples, the stately Piazza del Plebiscito, the lovely Basilica Reale Pontificia San Francesco da Paola. A road also allowed me an overlook passing Molosiglio Gardens with Mount Vesuvius looming across the bay. The Castel Sant’Elmo remained prominent in the distance in the opposite direction.
Switchback Sunset
My next decision wasn’t a terribly inspired one. I got slightly turned around on directions, despite my best navigational interests. The detour took me to a series of dead ends and up a steep street, where I eventually arrived at a series of police stations and military outposts. Rather than turning back, I opted to follow a lackluster road, which fortunately revealed Rampe di Pizzofalcone (Rampe Lamont Young).
This is a series of switchback roads quickly lowered down a steep hill, leading back towards the sea. The view turned out to be enormously lucky, as golden rays of sun were cutting through clouds, bathing the city below in light. The ocean rolled with warmer colors as I continued to walk, pausing every few steps for photos.
If finally reached the Ovo Castle, a seaside fortress along the waterfront. From here, I turned west and walked into the sunset.
Seaside Seastride
Seaside walks during sunset are some of my favorite activities. There’s something profoundly unhurried about them, since the entire point is to grant the sun all the due time it need to sink, blazing changing colors across the sky.
My long walk took me through Villa Comunale, a long, seaside park where I ducked between trees, spotted fountains in disrepair, looked at old, wizened statues, sighted rainbows to the east and kicked past small museums.
By this time, it was fair to say that exhaustion had begun stalking me. My feet ached. I was getting blearily even as twilight marred my sight. I found myself seeking out benches more and more often.
To end my night, I grabbed a quick snack, sought out some shoe shops at the behest of a friend in Saudi Arabia, and loaded myself on a train back home. When I finally returned to my lodgings in Portici, I was well and truly battered.
In anticipation of a lazy morning mind, I set about three dozen alarms on three dozen devices. I hope to see Pompeii tomorrow, and utterly refuse to miss my chance due to overextending myself in Naples.
Right now, I’m hammering out notes for this article on my phone. I’ll type the post in full once I’m on a bus back to Rome.
But for now, Pompeii awaits.
So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written November 30th, 2023
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