The partly pedestrianized via Toledo (still called via Roma by many, though it hasn't officially been called this for years) is one of Naples' main roads, connecting the two centres of the city and containing many of Naples' high-street shops. It is also a dam, holding back the maze of tiny streets that makes up the Camorra heartland of the Quartieri Spagnoli to its west. Towards the Centro Storico, the small sloping piazza Monteoliveto has some fine buildings including the Renaissance church of Sant'Anna dei Lombardi. Atop a baroque fountain here a youthful Carlo II strikes a rather camp pose. To the north, up the hill from the newly renovated piazza Dante, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli is a treasure trove of mosaics, sculptures, paintings and other finds from southern Italy's antiquity. SightsQuartieri Spagnoli Many Neapolitans will warn you against the Quartieri Spagnoli (literally, Spanish Quarters), seeing it as the city’s den of iniquity, and the home of the Camorra. In actual fact, this network of streets running up the hill behind via Toledo is probably as safe as most other areas of Naples: though the locals may occasionally want to shoot each other, they’re unlikely to want to harm you. Built to house Spanish troops in the 16th century and changed very little since, this is now one of Europe’s poorest urban areas. There has been much effort to spruce it up since the early 1990s but it remains cramped and economically it struggles, unemployment remaining stubbornly high. It’s an atmospheric place to wander around, though, and there are many excellent local restaurants if no obvious sights. At its northern edge, along via Pignasecca to piazza Montesanto is the most interesting part, with some good shops selling household goods and shoes, a market that sells mainly fruit, vegetables and fish and a constant swarm of people shopping, passing through or chatting at the tops of their voices. Sant’Anna dei Lombardi piazza Monteoliveto 14, T 081-5513333. Mon-Sat 0930-1230. Built in the early part of the 15th century, and an excellent example of the Tuscan influence of the time, the nave of this complex is still in the process of being restored, though work should be completed sometime in 2003. The chapels that have already been restored make it one of the highlights of the city. In the sacrestia Giorgio Vasari’s sensuous 16th-century ceiling frescoes illustrating the Simboli delle Virtù are some of Naples’ most important Renaissance works. The exceptionally skilled inlaid wood panels are attributed to Giovanni da Verona and others (1506-10). To the right of the entrance to the church (currently reached at the end of a sequence of chapels down the side of the nave) the first chapel contains an excellent bas-relief of the Annunciation on the altar by Benedetto da Maiano. Another chapel has a Pietà by Guido Mazzoni consisting of eight life-size terracotta figures. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli piazza Museo, 19, T 081-4401466, http://www.marketplace.it/ museo.nazionale/ 0900-1900, closed Tue. €6.20. With the finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum alongside other important Roman statues and artefacts, the National Archaeological Museum calls itself the most important museum of archaeology in the world, and it might well be. The sheer breadth and quality of content here is staggering. From enormous grandiose marble statues to small homely paintings, and from erotic oil-lamps to a mosaic made of a million different pieces, the museum gives an amazing idea of the look and feel of the ancient Roman world. It would be easy to wear yourself out with all this though – if you really want to see it all it’s probably worth spreading it over a couple of days. The following should give an idea of some of the highlights. The audio guide, available in English from the ticket office for an extra €4, has some interesting insights, but tends to be a little long-winded, and overly concerned with the history of the collections, rather than with the objects themselves. It’s hard to be prepared for the sheer scale of the Farnese Marbles. They are enormous. Of Roman rather than Neapolitan origin, they were brought to Naples by Ferdinand IV. The Farnese Bull, the most famous of them all, is here in its entirety, and a very ambitious piece it is too. Sculpted by Apollonius and Tauriskos in the second century BC, five figures, a dog and a bull represent the myth of Dirce (who was tied to a bull by Zeto and Amphion as punishment for the mistreatment of their mother). Pliny the Elder wrote about this sculpture in his Natural History, so we know that it was already considered a masterpiece in ancient times. The equally large Hercules (looking tired after a hard day’s tasking) is probably a reproduction of a bronze Greek statue. The Farnese statue of Atlas, currently on display upstairs with the Pompeii paintings, has him holding a globe which is covered in the oldest existing symbolic depictions of the constellations and the signs of the zodiac in a form which is generally unchanged today. The Roman Mosaics, many from Pompeii, are extraordinary not just because they seem so modern, but also because they are so well-preserved. The tiny and simple mosaic of two ducks in room LIX is a case in point – it could have been made in almost any period. Two other mosaics by Dioscuride di Sarno in the same room show an extraordinarily accomplished use of the medium. The much- reproduced Ritratto Femminile in room LXIV is especially painterly. It’s hard, however, to compete with the vast Battaglia tra Alessandro e Dario (Battle between Alexander the Great and Darius, the battle which assured Alexander’s conquest of Asia). This colossal mosaic is estimated to contain a million individual tesserae, and is approximately 6 m wide and 3 m tall. It is not only the most famous mosaic from antiquity, but is also seen as the most important document of ancient Greek painting (almost none of which has survived) since it is a copy of a painting from that earlier period. Of all the collection of paintings, the four small and relatively simple female figures from Stabia seem the most powerful. That of Diana, loading an arrow onto a bow, is every bit as beautiful as the much more reproduced Flora. The Vaso Blu, in room LXXXV, an amphora used for wine, is another amazing object. Delicate and ornate cupids in white glass gather and crush grapes against a cobalt blue glass background. In room LXXXIX a silver bucket from Herculaneum is beautifully illustrated with female figures bathing. The so-called Bust of Seneca in room CXVII turns out not to be of Seneca at all, since a portrait of him was found in 1813 which bears no likeness to the bust. But more than 40 copies have been found, so the subject’s fame is not in doubt, even if his identity still is. The Farnese Bowl is considered one of the finest pieces of cameo ever made. Made at the Egyptian Ptolemaic Court it was transferred to Rome after Octavius’s victory over Cleopatra. Since then it has also been a treasure of the Byzantine court, the court of Frederick II, the Persian court, the Aragonese court, the Medici family and the Farnese family. The scale model of Pompeii isn’t quite as good as being there, but it does give a good idea of the size of the city (though the eastern part of the city, including the amphitheatre, is missing from the model). It’s also an impressive work in its own right. It was constructed in exceptional detail (in places including tiny reproductions of frescoes) between 1861 and 1864. Of the museum’s collection of erotica, now in the Gabinetto Segreto, Francesco I, king of Naples from 1825-1830, declared “it would be as well to confine all the obscene objects in one room... the only people allowed to visit this room being of mature age and proven morality”. The official attitude towards this infamous collection has wavered over the years, from embarrassed to moralistic. The ‘Secret Room’ was opened by Garibaldi when he entered the city – the way was administered by the Bourbons having come to be seen as backward and repressed. It was semi-closed again by Mussolini’s fascist regime. Today, on the surface, the position has not changed too much since Francesco’s day: you need to book a reservation when you buy your ticket (these are free), and you’re only allowed in with a guide. Actually, though, the guided tour is fascinating, and the attitude more educational than puritanical. The most striking thing about the collection is not its eroticism but its variety. The multitudinous uses of the phallus include bells, oil lamps and symbols of prosperity to hang outside one’s shop. Figures of men with enormous penises carrying serving trays were apparently a joke at the expense of focaccia-sellers, and some of the erotic paintings were probably prostitutes’ adverts. The collection’s most famous piece, that of Pan making love to a goat, is, as the guide will probably point out with a completely straight face, beautifully and delicately sculptured. Other highlights include a shop sign portraying a donkey sodomizing a lion and being crowned by victory, and a simple depiction of an erect phallus, under which is written “Here lives happiness”.
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Naples - £5.99
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