Neapolitans

  

 

 

 

Here are some of Edward Hutton's observations of the people of Naples.

 

In this boiling cauldron, after a little, when one’s first distress had passed, there remained an extraordinary fascination. The life of Naples was and is the life of the streets, of the decumani, salite, scale, rampe, of which it is full; everything takes place there in these narrow ways, even the toilet; and little by little one is compelled by the obscene spirit of the city to wander continually, and, only half ashamed, to watch these poor people in all their pathetic poverty and animalism, their amazing unself-consciousness, their extraordinary and meaningless violence of gesture and speech—and yes, their joy of life. Was the Neapolitan of antiquity like this?...

 

For the Neapolitan is indeed a highly composite person. Humanity and cruelty, bravery and cowardice , openness and deceit, thrift and prodigality are all jumbled together in him and it is a puzzle to know which predominates. He is among Italy’s best soldiers—always light-hearted, facetious and pertinacious, marvellously expressive, too, in his features and gestures. He is not more dishonest than anyone else, nor does he lie maliciously, but to glorify himself and to be agreeable. He is too easy-going to be vindictive, he is emotional, but not revengeful. And to call him lazy is the most absurd and ridiculous charge ever brought against people who are essentially indefatigable. Watch the facchini at the port; the boatmen and fishermen, too, toil for hours at the oar on a bit of bread and a crock of water. And the peasants have only to be seen at work, laborious and untiring in the blazing heat, to convince one of their energy. The Neapolitan is, however, a gambler, though not perhaps more than his brother of the English working-class. He is cruel to animals, but not to children….

 Observe a Neapolitan of the upper class; he never walks, he strolls. If he is in a hurry, if he is pressed for time, he takes a cab or a taxi, but generally he strolls; passiare, he calls it. He stops to speak with a friend or greets an acquaintance with an eloquent gesture, loiters past the shop windows, lingers in the Galleria scanning the cafes, stays to read the placards before the newspaper kiosks and the bills displayed before the theatres and of course arrives late at his destination. For the Neapolitan is a flaneur of flaneurs, yet with something Spanish too, which is not surprising considering his history. …

 

This strolling, this passiare, often turns to good account, for it is the long tradition of the Neapolitans to conduct their affairs in the open air, whether it be the toilet or a business transaction. In this they are still as Greek as their remote ancestors. There in the street, in the piazza, in the Galleria the Neapolitan is most likely to be fortunate in a combinazione. And who will say he is wrong, since the open air is that which glorifies this great southern city set in the most beautiful landscape in the world.

 

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Edward Hutton: Naples and Campania Revisited. London, 1958. Pp. 3-6.