ABSTRACT

According to Raffaele La Capria there is no city in the world, apart from perhaps Rio De Janeiro, which ‘contains more nature’ than Naples.1 A well-known literary, iconographic and historiographical tradition dating back to the eighteenth century discovered and depicted nature in the Neapolitan urban context as an element which both embellished and nourished the city. It constituted an attraction of continual and renewable sustenance. This representation of Naples traditionally highlighted aspects of extraordinary natural beauty (the sea, the hills, Vesuvius), the wealth of fountains and gardens, woods and mountains, the fertile soil, the mild climate, its famous works of art and tradition of folklore, the beneficial effects of the thermal springs and sea-bathing. This combination of resources, moreover, not only contributed to support a commonly accepted view of the landscape and construct an artificial image, but was also an important founding element both at the economic and social level. At the beginning of the 1900s, economic and working practices closely linked to the natural resources – mining, fishing and mineral waters, agriculture, animal rearing and tourism – were important sources of employment and revenue which, at the same time, impressed upon vast urban spaces a strong social and cultural identity and even characterized the actual typology and form of housing.2