Italy: Aesthetics in the streets of Naples

....a few months back in Mercato San Severino, Italy

I haven’t been to Italy in half a decade. I have missed the Old Country. The undeniable qualities that are experienced while dining at any Tuscan trattoria, soaking up cappuccino at a smoky Roman espresso bar, gazing at golden mosaics in massive Emilia-Romagna Churches, or simply breathing in the Mediterranean air can be summarized in one word: aesthetic.

Aesthetic for me is that mixture of cultural expressions that are distinctly woven together and give a people their particular mode, their flavor if you will. Sit in a Starbucks café in Washington D.C. and you can get the particular homogenous, strict flavor for Inside-The-Beltway aesthetics. Or try standing in a New Delhi train station and you will be wrapped in the frenetic aesthetic of chai-spiced commotion. Watch the sun rise on the west coast of Costa Rica with Caribbean Rastafarian surfers lounging on the beach and you sense a mellow vibe. Strict homogeneity, frantic hubbub or sun drenched relaxation are all part of a people’s aesthetics.

In the last year I have sojourned in Costa Rica, the Rocky Mountains and east coast of the USA, southern France, London, central China, eastern Tibet and the Indian subcontinent. In these travels and stopovers I have been wrapped in different cultural blankets—each colorful coverlet providing its own kind of aesthetic warmth. Whilst under each of these cultural blankets, I look out as an observer, always knowing that I will be folding that aesthetic blanket, putting it away in my wardrobe of life experience. Yet, I must say that in the last week, the Italian aesthetic has captured and hypnotized me to the point where I felt that I was no longer an observer, as I feel in all places I venture in this period of my life. As the observer—and that what is observed—faded away, Italy truly enter my blood—and a few thoughts from this aesthetic period are below.

………..We have been venturing around Campania for the last ten days; a region where the people approach their food and devotion to Catholicism with similar gusto. In Naples, where it seems you are always in the center of the city as every small piazza is hub of vivacious life, Antonio and I walked the city for what seems days without tiring of the stimulation. Visiting his alma mater of the Oriental Institute of Napoli, where many Jesuit priests trained in the 18th century before venturing off to Tibet and China, we spoke of our own high plateau adventures. Or, strolling through Naples’s roughest Mafioso-saturated neighborhood of Forcella, where many a Jesuit priest has lost their life, we kept watch over each others’ shoulder. Sitting in the likes of Caffè Letterario, a bohemian bookstore where southern Italy’s supreme café macchiato or anis-espresso is served, or eating classic Napoletana pizza at Pizzeria da Michele, we kept our fuel tank full.

In Naples one feels part of the city, almost like a local. If dining in a superb restaurant, you still are in eye shot of the neighbor’s drying linen on the clothes line. Or sitting down at a local osteria, the folks at the next table always seem ready to offer advice on the local specialty. Even if you try to quietly sit and write in bookstore, you will still be drawn into the locals debating how much ransom the Berlusconi government paid to get Le Due Simone (the two Italian girls) out from their would-be Iraqi beheaders, or, more importantly, the current standing of Roma now that they lost to Real Madrid in the previous nights futból match.



But, on to spiritual matters—Campania is especially known for their devotion to recently beatified Saints—such as the austere Padre Pio or the doctor Giuseppe Moscati—both are known for their many miraculous acts of healing. Padre Pio wore gloves since his early twenties when holes began to open in his hands. Indeed, he suffered greatly due to the pain of not only the holes in his hands that bled throughout his life, but also in his feet and the open wound in his ribcage. The Vatican recognized him as a Stimmatizzato—stigmatized—or as it is written in his biography, “Angles had shot the fiery arrows of sanctified bliss into his being” and subsequently the holy marks of stigmata appeared.

Dr. Moscati was so renowned for his miracles of healing that the walls of the shrines that are dedicated to him are ornamented with thousands of silver embossments, fashioned in the shape of hearts, eyes, infants and internal organs or any such bodily part that was healed. These decorative symbols are offered in appreciative reverence to Saint Moscati, and as a testament to the miracle of being healed. Many other saints in most of the churches in Campania have such silver embossment.

Campania, and in particular the populace of Naples, quarters a group of dedicated Catholics known as the Practitioners of the Souls of Purgatory. Wrathful sculpted skull and bones adorn the Souls of Purgatory shrines which are found in the nook and crannies of alleyways, along noisy roadsides, or in private shrine-rooms in churches. Practitioners offer intense prayers for those in the betwixt and between state of purgatory, calling upon saints, angles and other- worldly beings to assist them en route to Heaven. Whether it is these devout practitioners or simply a daily church goer in Campania, I have seen no where else in Italy, much less northern Europe or the USA, where Catholics pray and genuflect with such commitment and fervor—rubbing their hands, foreheads and lips on the hands and feet of the many statues, ancient crypts, or urns with the mortal remains of past saints. The devotion is palpable.

A sojourn to this area would not be complete without spending time along the famed Amalfi Coast; a region of unrivaled natural splendor where a handful of beaches intersperse steep sea cliffs, and where classic Italian villages cling to rock precipices above the ocean. Antonio and I left our take off point of Mercato San Severino, a small village inland from the coast and drove the entire length dramatic coastal highway. In Amalfi, one of the most important maritime ports in the 1600s, we discuss romantic notions of piracy over espresso. We continued on to Furore where we swam in the azure waters below dramatic crags and concealed grottos before a nourishing lunch of water buffalo mozzarella, olives and local bread. Finally, I am writing this note under a lemon grove in Positano, perhaps one of the most arrestingly beautiful towns I have ever been to in my life, awaiting our last café of the day before heading home, past Mount Vesuvius and the village of Pompeii.

Leonardo Da Vinci often wrote ‘Dimmi se fu mai fatto qualcosa?’ or ‘Tell me if anything was ever done?’ Whilst this was certainly a summons to himself to continually engage with the limitless potentialities in all fields of his endeavor, I will for my part be sated for the time being and respond, ‘Ho fatto qualcosa’, or ‘I did something’. That what I did was to make a re-connection to the Old Country’s aesthetic before heading back to my home in Nepal. And to add just a bit of that Italian aesthetic to my Himalayan abode, I’ll have in my rucksack a couple kilos of Parmiggiano Reggiano, Lavazza espresso coffee and a new caffettiera Napoletana for my morning brew.


Positano, Regione Campania, Italia