by ARIANNA PISAPIA
Copyright © 2019
Tales of Naples
Copyright © 2019
The legend of the impossible love between Posillipo and Nisida
The inspiration of Matilde Serao
The natural and artistic beauties of the city of Naples and its surroundings have inspired the creation of a great number of myths and legends linked to the most iconic places of the city. Indeed, it only takes a walk around the Neapolitan streets to find artistic fragments coming from an ancient past, or to admire natural beauties and landscapes which, through time, have inspired the imagination of a lot of poets, artists and writers.
Maybe, it was that kind of fascination that inspired the famous writer Matilde Serao to imagine the hill of Posillipo and the isle of Nisida – placed one in front of the other – as the protagonists of a tragic story of an impossible love. The writer, in her book “Neapolitan Legends”, imagined that Posillipo was once a young, sweet, joyful and sensible boy, surrounded by friends and people thanks to his kind spirit. The boy fell intensely in love with a countryside girl, Nisida, whose beauty was outstanding, but her soul was cold, insensible and mean: she made her victims fall in love with her, condemning them to the despair of an unreturned love. The young Posillipo did not escape that sad destiny, and his pain was so unbearable that, incapable of admiring the beauty of Nisida without being loved back, decided to take his life away throwing himself in the waves of the sea.
But Fate decided to transform both of them into two natural and separate entities: the young boy became the hill of Posillipo that we all know, intended to welcome visitors and admirers from all over the world thanks to its beauty. Indeed, it is not a case that the meaning of the word Posillipo comes from the Greek word “Pausilypon”, meaning “what makes the pain cease”. The girl, instead, became the isle of Nisida which, although maintaining its beauty, is destined to become a place of prisony, evil and sadness: indeed, on this isle there is the Juvenile Detention Center.
Placed like that, Posillipo and Nisida are intended to look at each other and being close forever, but they cannot ever rejoin, becoming so the emblem of that impossible love that characterized their mortal lives.
History of Naples: Piazza Nicola Amore and the story of the Quattro palazzi
iazza Nicola Amore is located in the center of Umberto I street, next to Garibaldi Central Station and near the Cathedral of Naples. Known mostly as “e quatto palazze” by the Neapolitan people, it was built in the 80s of the Ninenteeth century during the rehabilitation of the city and today it appears as a circular square, surrounded by four neo-Renaissance style buildings.
In the coming months the square will become an important hub of the city of Naples with the opening of the Duomo station which will include not only a new urban structure, but above all the opportunity to discover a piece of fundamental history of Naples.
The square has a long history that transcends that of the city of Naples. Located immediately outside the walls of ancient Neapolis, the square was, already in the Greek-Roman era, an active point of everyday life in the city. Merchant ships arrived here and activities of public life took place, as evidenced by the archaeological finds discovered in recent years. In addition to furnishings of any kind, at the end of the nineteenth century, evidence of the life of the Greek polis was found: from a spa complex to statues and busts depicting Hellenic divinities or warriors from the Roman era, to buildings of the imperial age such as: a monumental complex that included a temple on a podium, dedicated to the imperial cult, and bounded by a portico, the gymnasium, through which we witnessed the athletic contests of the games played by Octavian Augustus in the first century AD
Once again, the excavations have discovered a cross-section of the history of Naples, such as the one that was the Olympic citadel of the graeca urbs.
Over the centuries this place has always the function of a public place, in the seventeenth century the square was named “Piazza della Sellaria”, because here it was located the fountain of Sellaria, desired by the Spanish viceroys after having sedated the revolts of Masaniello, as a sign return to power in the places of revolts.
The square assumes the current circular shape after the work of the rehabilitation of the late nineteenth century. Surrounded by four neo-Renaissance buildings with entrances supported by four telamons that give an air of monumentality to the complex, the statue of the mayor to whom it is dedicated, Nicola Amore, was in this place and moved in 1938 on the occasion of Hitler’s visit in Naples to ensure that there were no obstacles to the path of the German fuhrer to the sea of Naples, and never relocated.
But the square is going to live a new life thanks to the new project of the Duomo station by the Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas.
Published: Aug 27, 2019
Latest Revision: Aug 27, 2019
Ourboox Unique Identifier: OB-671725
Copyright © 2019
Skip to content