Naples — San Giuseppe

The highlight of today’s tour of Naples was the Teatro di San Carlo, the famous opera house created by the Bourbon kings of Naples in the 18th century. There were mirrors in all of the boxes around the theater and the guide explained that all of them faced the royal box so that everyone could see the king, giving him control over the nobles in attendance. Clap when he claps, laugh when he laughs. During this time, the Kingdom of Naples was a major European power — very wealthy and influential. Naples was considered the third most cosmopolitan city of Europe behind only Paris and London. This comes to an end when the kingdom collapses in the 1800s and the Neapolitans contend that the rest of Italy stole the wealth of the kingdom when it united with the north to form modern Italy. There are several Royal palaces here and hundreds of ornate churches, but they have lost their luster. A dad might say Naples went from Baroque to broke (that one is for the Guineys). The kingdom may have dissolved but its influence continued in one major sense — culturally uniting the region. That’s the reason Italian immigrants from this region would say they were from Naples even though they were not from the city itself. They were identifying with the kingdom which included much of the South. The language is another example. There are still 7 million Napulitano speakers and, with it comes an attitude that they proudly proclaim as Napulitanitá (Neapolitan-ness) — a mix of creativity, flexibility, and chaos. Historians (and the Neapolitans themselves) claim it comes from living in the shadow of Vesuvius. My current travel partner, Martina — a German — is not a fan.Read more