catching up - the Naples apartment.

I thought I'd offer:

- a photo to show how comfortable our apartment in Naples was

- a photo of our skyline and the amazing ways electricity gets added to old buildings in Naples

- a photo of our own hang-out clothes line above the street; it was wet much of the week so we did not get to use it. Mixed with it appears to be someone's coaxial (satellite TV) cable.

The Amalfi coast

To scoot around Naples with free transport and visit excavations and museums we had used a three day ArteCard. An essential for the visitor to Naples.

Friday, that card having expired, we set out for the Amalfi coast using a Unico Campania all day 'Fascia 5' card, the Fascia Cinque, referring to the distance covered by the ticket. This allowed us to take the Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento, then SITA buses to Positano, Amalfi (lunch) and Salerno, before coming home on the Trenitalia train from Salerno. At the end of a wearying day we payed about E6.50 for two booking fees to travel swiftly non-stop and comfortably on that leg on the Palermo-Rome Intercity Train.

The use of public transport meant that we doubled or trebled the value of travel compared with using some tour bus. We were among ordinary travellers, albeit that the buses we took between Sorrento and Positano and Amalfi was mainly inhabited by tourists - a new world of budget travellers, though, in which a young Chinese couple could leap from the bus at an isolated part of the journey to climb stairs down the cliff to the Green Grotto. And where two young women from Taiwan would rely on us a couple of times for advice on which bus to take.

The last bus section, from Amalfi to Salerno, was different, astounding, the coast more precipitate, the traffic on the narrow road quite heavy, the spaces between heavy vehicles passing each other in some places in millimeters, or with gentle brushings of soft edge bits... and a full load of locals, standing room taken, crowded.

A white haired woman in her seventies at least, gets on in one village with a massive bunch of flowers, then gets off soon after at an isolated bend, vanishing up a steep stairway in vegetation.

Above and below, the way the land has been worked for thousands of years, with lemon orchards banked steeply on terraces; caves and workshops; houses and sheds and pathways. Look at the history of Amalfi and wonder at what generations ago what types of people would come to work the hardest land imaginable in the margins of this tiny port rival to Genoa and Venice, proud enough to have refused the keys of the city to Roger II, Norman king of Sicily, 900 years ago, sacked for its temerity.

This last section of the coast (Amalfi to Salerno, alas no photos here) is less travelled, has more integrity and is less a site for the beautiful people than Amalfi-Positano where prices have gone mad, building on the steep coast more improbable, and though with some of its old charm, the cultural value of Positano is descended into the depths of, of... Who magazine.

Photo above: early morning in one of the many busy towns along the Naples-Salerno rail. We had descended from one train, caught the next, to take coffee in a bar — and use the toilet in the bar. Everyone relies on bars for toilets — but of course if you have a coffee every time you go, the cycle can get vicious!

Below: glimpses of the sea as this suburban train approaches Sorrento.

and a glimpse of the narrow gauge track from our seat in the back of the train

and here photos of Positano, from up near the bus stop, down below and back up again

— a climb reminiscent of Modica in Sicily

Views from the bus window on the road from Positano to Amalfi

National Archaeological Museum, Naples

I found it necessary to organise photos and comments in a web page, found here.

I am conscious, in making my critique of acquisition and presentation in this museum on that web page, that I myself have acquired and critiqued. May the gods frown on me...

Below: "You've gone too far this time, my pecker!"

One can see (in Freudian anxiety terms, though even enlarged the actual absence of vital member from sculpture is not clear) why this is a less familiar image/relationship than Leda and the Swan.

Click to see the larger collection of photos in web page form.

Herculaneum

We travelled about a third of the distance from Naples to Herculaneum as we would have travelled to get to Pompeii, on the same local rail system (Circumvesuviana). Herculaneum (Ercolano today) is a smaller excavation of a more exclusive seaside retreat than Pompeii. Extraordinary to be able to look down into, then walk down into, streets of antiquity inside a modern town.

Alarming to be allowed to walk into rooms, over tiled floors 2000 years old, with rain puddles in them and shoes of every description scraping over them.

It was something of a puzzle, watching bricklayers at work restoring or recreating walls, to know which parts of fascinating wall building styles should be attributed to the original town builders.

We later visited the National Archaeological Museum where we saw spectacular mosaics from Herculaneum and Pompeii, very valuable to have been first to Herculaneum — having done which we felt no need to go to Pompeii. Here are photos from Herculaneum:

click to enlarge this photo below, the detail may otherwise escape you...

... use the BACK button to return

... and here, finally, down at the seaside as was  in AD79.

If he was a gentleman guardian of the town, he was, like the guns of Singapore in 1941,

looking the wrong way.

click here to see some items from here and Pompeii in the 

National Archaeological Museum in Naples

A visit to the Museo Madre

Its publicity material says of the Museo Madre that it is the only contemporary art museum in the centre of any city. We enjoyed our visit to the museum today. Lively, interesting, especially interesting to need to look at not quite impressive seeming works and put them in the context of being 30 years old and saying "oh yes, how original that was then..."

We were advised that we could take photos of the structure but not of the works. The structure is itself a great work of art. We fudged only slightly. Here is the result in a little film. You may need to turn down the sound on this, still learning how to get sound levels right.. this soundtrack recorded while we lunched in the  cafe of the museum. Contemporary cutlery grunge lyrical?

Reflecting later, we were conscious that there seemed many things missing from the museum, in what might be 'contemporary' beginning not least with the graffiti art with which Naples abounds. We commented on this to someone without connection with the museum; the reply was that this museum project had been pushed and funded by a group of politicians who particularly wanted to favour artists of their own circle. Those politicians were now out of power and this museum thus had had its funds cut. To deal with this cut in funding the museum now opens only in the mornings. Hence the problem also for staff whose hours and shifts have been halved.

Sunday in Naples.. Domenica a Napoli

We have a delightful loft apartment in Naples, contemporary style, like, Helen says, a factory conversion in Sydney. The new top title photo for the blog is a photo from our window.

I went out early, the morning after our Saturday night arrival, to fetch breakfast items. Approaching the major road from narrow via Duomo I heard a sudden gobbet of shouting and the sound of hands hitting car rather than car hitting car. Several others walking my way hastened to have a look. When I got to the corner, there, eight lanes away, were young men with a fancy black car in altercation with young women (Berlusconesche, we could say), dressed in tight pink pants. By the time I got to cross the road a few metres up, the Carabinieri had arrived and were interviewing the men, the women having vanished. Good marks for prompt police intervention. There is a considerable police presence wherever we have been, but it is much less aggressive and confrontational and hard rule driven than it seems in Australia. Results based, rather than pigeon chest puffing power position assertion.

Again yesterday, this sight we have seen before, in Soriano last year, of the parking policeperson standing by the triple parked car, blowing whistle and waiting for the owner to arrive and move car, rather than issue ticket, though ticket pad in hand. A nice scold, not a ticket and sustained road blockage. (We did not have the camera with us either in Siracusa week before last, when we saw a police team and tow truck pick up an illegally parked car, back it (quite some time) down the narrow street and drop it, with some difficult manoeuvring, into a road-centre parking space. Shades of my experience in Paris December 1969, when the charming young policeman at the police station, after I had reported my car stolen, came back to me with some gents in overalls to say "Monsieur, may I introduce you to the gentlemen who stole your car, and may we ask you in future not to park in front of the doctor's garage." "Oh, sorry, where do I go to collect it?" "It is about 100 metres down the street on the other side.") When will we Anglo-Sassoni learn that the more we huff the more people will try to blow our houses down.

I went out again later with Helen and with the iPhone - movie below. (I am using the iPhone rather than the Fuji S3 DSLR first because it is unobtrusive and producing such interesting results and second, alas, because the S3 is producing a spot on every photo (either lens) and I have not yet solved the problem.)

To get to the local market, we first have to descend from our fifth of five floors apartment to the street.

A few metres up the street we dropped into the Museo Madre Contemporary Art Museum and got some good advice on buying an 'ArteCard' with discounts for places and free transport in the region PLUS information and conversation on the industrial relations agitation by museum staff on very familiar grounds: casual employement, low pay, short shifts. And then to the cheerful crowds of the market, to stock up food (except we forgot butter, so that will be another 2 x 131 steps plus the horizontal travel) after having a coffee in a deservedly popular cafe, serving brilliant coffee.

It's still carnevale, as last Sunday in Palermo, so still small children are out in special outfits.

While putting together the movie, we suddenly heard a band somewhere downstairs. I put the iPhone in the window and recorded a soundtrack for this movie, so the commentary is in subtitles.

Best to watch as HD 1080, there's a little thingie down below the picture to click and adjust. You can also watch full screen, another button below: explore, enjoy (I hope!).

leaving Sicily

Today we will leave Sicily. A week in Siracusa, two days Modica, a week in Palermo. This week clouded by a quite unpleasant virus for us both. Remarkably fortunate to have been where we were, above the ultimate fresh food market, able to fetch small delights to cook as well as strawberries and blood oranges and bottles of strangely delicious and pale 'Fanta' - not the real thing really, just a pale Italian version authorised by Coca Cola, containing real juice (three oranges to the bottle, lacking colouring agents. No escaping the globalisation though, bring home a bottle of standard local mineral water (fraction of price of such in Australia) and discover it is a Nestle product.

Many writing projects incomplete. But lasting impressions in the mind. We realise that to be in Capo district we are very much at the centre of old Palermo. Which deserves several essays. Yes you do still have to pay mafia protection for a stall downstairs (conversation with someone who has to pay); yes, we do have, for more research and writing perhaps, photos of the names on the memorial to the fallen in the war against the Mafia, 100 metres away, round the corner, other side of the apartment, piazza of the Tribunale of Palermo and the Ministry of Justice. Yesterday we took the town bus to the hill village of Monreale, where the Normans left their greatest buildings. And shared a superb lunch in a small trattoria with charming Korean friend Lee Junyoung (following the rule: walk 100 metres + away from a tourist attraction).

Today we take the 10am train, the west Sicily intercity for Rome, which meets the east Sicily (Siracusa) intercity for Rome at Messina, at the top left corner of Sicily for the train to the mainland, where the two trains are joined to travel onward. Naples by 8pm. To our apartment in the San Lorenzo district, next to the new modern art museum. Having trained in Sicily for an apartment on the fifth of five floors.

While disappointed that we have been frustrated in not seeing more of Palermo, we sense its size and character and we are prepared in a way not possible coming from the north, to arrive at the other historical capital of the kingdom of Sicily or the Two Sicilies — Naples.

We are not unaware (speak to an older local at the bus stop and swiftly be warned of the dangers, a conversation subject that comes promptly after the weather) that there are personal risks in these places; we have prepared variously for that. At the same time, we compare such risk with other modern cities and suburbs of Sydney in particular.  But this is not central to our focus on these remarkable places, full of life now, full of great history. We did not get to the Greek theatre at Siracusa; we did not take the train from Palermo to the Segesta temple (eat your heart out, Athens). Now the whip may come out, to take, from Naples, the train to Pompeii (the Circumvesuviana railway system) and the bus for Amalfi — the Amalfi drive with the Monterey Peninsula drive in California and Reedy Creek Rd, Eurobodalla, the three most spectacular of the world's scenic roads.

While in recovery from the virus, we watched Il Divo and The Leopard, Italian films of importance both in the history of film and for illumination of Italian history... nice to be able to pause the DVD on the computer and fetch historical background. And special to watch them here in Palermo, with a box of tissues not for the film but the virus.

All about Bronte

When we went on the Circumetnea railway(earlier post) I asked several people about Lord Nelson. They rushed to tell the story warmly. Yes, he became the duke, he had the castle built but he never came here. I offered comment about Nelson's dirty role in the suppression of the liberal revolution in Naples in 1799. My comments puzzled. There was a reluctance or perhaps lack of knowledge of Nelson other than as hero, also a conservatism among ordinary people. In London, Nelson's conduct at Naples in 1799 was severely criticised; he was brought back to command the Channel Fleet.

 I later find this history of some of it.

The cast:

King Ferdinand IV

Queen Carolina perhaps lover of

Sir John Acton, made Prime Minister by Carolina

William Hamilton, British Minister

Lady Hamilton whose oft demanded dance smote...

... the heart of Horatio, Lord Nelson, who became the callous agent of these women

Admiral Caracciolo, different sort of hero chap, done in viciously by the other lovely people here.

In Naples in 1799 the situation was in simple terms this. The king, Frederick IV, was recognised by all who dealt with him as a fool, uninterested in affairs to state, committed to hunting and fun and games with ladies in waiting and military officers. His wife, Maria Carolina, daughter of the former Austrian emperor, brother now of the current emperor Joseph and sister of Marie Antoinette, decapitated Queen of France in the revolution, was the centre of power. Joseph, reflecting on a visit to Naples, provides a dreadful account of daily life at court, concluding, of Frederick the king, that he has

"... so definite an aversion from all innovation, so great an indolence of mind and a distaste for reflection, that I must assure you that the man has never reflected in his life about himself, or his physical or moral existence, his situation, his interests, or his country. He is quite ignorant of the past and the present and never thought about the future..." [cited in Harold Acton, The Bourbons of Naples 1734-1825, London 1956; quoted at page 9, Modern Naples, A Documentary Historuy 1799-1999 John Santore, New York 2001]

Around Maria Carolina was an extraordinary gaggle of English. Upon achieving a place on the Council of State on the birth of her first child, the Queen had ousted a moderate and sensible prime minister replacing him with a hardline (as regards the absolute right of kings and inappropriateness of popular assemblies) prime minister Sir John Acton, of a line of knights and lords Actons of some fame in history. This one was reputedly Maria Carolina's lover, certainly very much her agent. A close friend and influence on the Queen was the young Emma Hamilton, wife of the much older British Minister to Naples, Lord Hamilton. Emma was also rather openly the lover of Nelson.

All shared a detestation of the Napoleonic regime. It was of course central to British policy to sustain Neapolitan hostility to Napoleon and commitment to war against France. With the added value of Maria Carolina's links to Austria. The French had occupied Rome. With some kind of agreement from Austria that Austria would join the party, Ferdinand sent his army north and removed the French from Rome—briefly. No Austrians arrived. The Austrians had massed forces against France in central Europe where they were (along with much of the rest of the old power of Europe) defeated at the battle of Austerlitz on 27 December 1798. Napoleon then ordered his brother Joseph to leave Paris secretly to lead armies he had sent to Italy. On 19 January 1799 he wrote again to say:

"I wish you to enter the Kingdom of Naples in the first days of February, and I wish to hear from you in the course of February that our flag is flying over the walls of the capital. You will make no truce, you will hear no capitulation: my will is that the Bourbons shall have ceased to rule at Naples." [Santore, op.cit, p56]

At news of the French nearing Naples, the two trios (Frederick, Maria Carolina, Acton; Lord and Lady Hamilton and Nelson) scuttled off for Palermo aboard Nelson's flagship, leaving behind an exhortation to the people of Naples to resist, cleverly signed as from Rome a week before. A 'Parthenopean Republic' of prominent largely landowning aristocratic liberals was put in place with the support of the French after the French had suffered unprecedented and ferocious resistance from the masses, the Lazzaroni... who detested the new republic, which itself did nothing much more as a government other than debate theological issues. This was the seat of a court which after 300 years of occupancy by foreign rulers, was full of courtiers and hangers on and diverse leeches who extracted impoverishing taxes from the countryside of southern Italy and Sicily.

From Palermo Frederick despatched a Cardinal to Calabria who led growing peasant forces north, turning out the republic. He granted amnesty to the republicans and embarked on policies of reform. But returning to Naples before the king, Maria Carolina ended the amnesty, re-arrested the republicans and their supporters including the popular naval commander Admiral Caracciolo. She reportedly asked Nelson to treat Naples, the richest and largest city in Europe, as if it were a rebellious Irish town. Nelson participated fully in reprisals and executions. Caracciolo was hung from his flagship's yard arm.

There was never any doubt as to Caracciolo's fate. Queen Caroline had relayed to Nelson her wish that Caracciolo should hang, no matter what. Caracciolo was tried aboard a British ship, Foudroyant, by Neapolitan royalist officers and charged with high treason. He was not permitted to call witnesses in his defence. He was condemned to death by three votes to two. He was not given the customary twenty-four hours for personal matters of the spirit. His request to be shot was denied and he was hanged from the yardarm of the Minerva on the morning of June 30, 1799. His body was weighted and thrown into the sea.  One of the mainstays of modern Neapolitan mythology is that the body refused to sink, floating to the surface and eerily bobbing its way towards shore. Indeed, there is even a painting showing King Ferdinand aboard his ship, aghast at the sight of the admiral's corpse floating alongside. Whatever the case, Caracciolo's body was retrieved from the sea and his remains now rest in the small church of Santa Maria della Catena in the Santa Lucia section of Naples.

© Jeff Matthews 2002-2012 entry May 2003

For Nelson's services to the state, a package of lands way round the back of Mount Etna was turned into a duchy called Bronte and Lord Nelson was made the first Duke of Bronte. He never got there, called back to London, criticised for his role at Naples and  sent off to the Channel fleet. Hamilton too returned to London, having offered resignation years earlier.

After the death of Lord Hamilton and divorce from his wife, Horatio Nelson was able to place Emma Hamilton and their daughter Horatia in a small farm near what is now Charing Cross in London. To which he came for an idyllic leave with them, only to be swiftly called back to the Engish fleet with the French fleet massing. He led the defeat of the French at the Battle of Trafalgar, himself dying from a shot from a French marksman in the close quarters battle. And after all that, famously said "Kiss me Hardy." Two accounts of which, here and here.

This secured an heroic historical place for Nelson. By some theories, a Patrick Brunty who changed his name to Bronte, did so in admiration of the Admiral.  Thus his daughters Emily, Charlotte and Anne's literary works were not published under the name Brunty but Bronte.

Lady Hamilton was now bereft of male supporters in a world where women owned nothing, while her lavish habits of spending persisted. She spent time in debtors prison.

I will leave you, again, at the smudgy station sign at Bronte...

...and this correspondence from Lady Hamilton to husband Sir William Hamilton's nephew before and after Sir William's death:

Letters

FROM

LADY HAMILTON

TO

THE HON. CHARLES GREVILLE,

Nephew of Sir William Hamilton.

I.

25th of February, [1800.]

DEAR SIR,

I received your letter by Mr. Campbell. He is lodged with us. We find him a pleasant man; and shall write fully by him. He will tell you a little how we go on, as to our domestic happiness. We are more united and comfortable than ever, in spite of the infamous Jacobin papers, jealous of Lord Nelson's glory, and Sir William's and mine. But we do not mind them. Lord N. is a truly virtuous and great man; and, because we have been fagging, and ruining our health, and sacrificing every comfort, in the cause of loyalty, our private characters are to be stabbed in the dark. First, it was said, Sir W. and Lord N. fought; then, that we played, and lost. First, Sir W. and Lord N. live like brothers; next, Lord N. never plays: and this I give you my word of honour. So I beg you will contradict any of these vile reports. Not that Sir W. and Lord N. mind it; and I get scolded by the Queen, and all of them, for having suffered one day's uneasiness.

Our fleet is off Malta: Lord Nelson has taken Le Genereux, and was after the frigates; so the attempt to relieve Malta has failed.

I have had a letter from the Emperor of Russia, with the Cross of Malta. Sir William has sent his Imperial Majesty's letter to Lord Grenville, to get me the permission to wear it. I have rendered some services to the poor Maltese. I got them ten thousand pounds, and sent corn when they were in distress. The deputies have been lodged in my house; I have been their Ambassadress, so his [I.]M. has rewarded me. If the King will give me leave to wear it abroad, it is of use to me. The Q——n is having the order set in diamonds for me; but the one the Emperor sent is gold. I tell you this little history of it, that you may be au fait. Ball has it also, but I am the first Englishwoman that ever had it. Sir W. is pleased, so I am happy. We are coming home; and I am miserable, to leave my dearest friend, the Q——. She cannot be consoled. We have sworn to be back in six months; and I will not quit her, till Sir William binds himself to come back. However, I shall have a comfort in seeing some of my old friends; and you, in particular. We have also many things to settle. I think, I can situate the person you mention about the Court, as a Camerist to some of the R. F——y, if her education is good.

It is a comfortable situation for life; so, I will bring her out.
The Q. has promised me. Let this remain entre nous.

II.

[April 1803.]

Lady Hamilton will be glad to know how long Mr. Greville can permit her to remain in the house in Piccadilly, as she must instantly look out for a lodging; and, therefore, it is right for her to know the full extent of time she can remain there. She also begs to know, if he will pay her debts, and what she may depend upon; that she may reduce her expences and establishment immediately.