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Naples'
hidden city
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| We
delve into the dark heart of Naples, weaving our
way through a subterranean system of passageways
and streets, where people lived, loved and died
through its beleaguered history. |
 Today's
tour of Naples
takes us around a new city, not the Naples we all
know and love, but another more mysterious city, carved
out beneath the surface. Naples has one of the most
complex underground systems in the world thanks to
the unique volcanic sandstone that characterises the
landscape between Vesuvius and the Phlegraean
Fields. This yellow durable sandstone or tufo
was formed millions of years ago through geothermal
and volcanic activity and was the ideal base for Naples'
first habitants, some 5,000 years ago, to carve into
grottoes and shelters. All this lurking just feet
under the surface of today's vibrant and modern city.
From the Romans on
We thank the Romans engineering expertise
for the complex system of water conduits, aqueducts
and cisterns that runs beneath Naples and which was
used up until relatively recent times to service the
city. The sandstone caves were used for burial and
religious purposes right through the early Christian
period; the catacombs of San Gennaro, where Naples'
patron saint lay until 817 and the burial chambers
in the Sanità area are perhaps the best known.
One of the most interesting underground walks starts
from Vico Traetta ai Cristallini and weaves
under an eighteenth century building. You can access
the 'hidden city' from a courtyard off Vico Traetta
where a series of steps lead you down to an underground
temple decorated with sandstone pillars. You then
enter narrow passageways through a complex network
of frescoed burial. Another site worth seeing is the
"cimitero delle fontanelle" (fountain
cemetery) which can be reached from the parish of
Santa Maria del Carmine. This underground graveyard
was originally used as an illegal burial site, then
as a paupers' graveyard and for victims of the plague
and finally as a deposit for all bones unearthed from
the city's overground cemeteries.
Into the heart of Naples
We continue our tour of Naples'
fascinating underground system in one of the
city's most fascinating areas - close to San Gregorio
Armeno and the Dome. There you'll find the entrance
to the Associazione
Napoli Sotterranea (Underground Naples
Association - tel. +39 081 296944). The association
organises underground tours into the city's intricate
sandstone bowels. First-timers will be surprised at
the scale
of the underground city - very different to the dank
claustrophobic catacombs of Rome - and quite possibly
disorientated by the silence of the subterranean system.
The contrast with the chaotic, and at times riotous,
city above could not be more stark, and, as you move
down the shadowy steps your guide may ask you (ours
did) to observe a minute's silence, - a mini endurance
test of sensory deprivation.
Air raid shelters
The steps wind down under the city for around
40 metres, opening into a bell-shaped cave with passageways
leading off it. One of the first things you notice
are the electricity cables running along the roof
of the cave, a reminder of how these cavities were
home to hundreds of people during WW2 who used them
as emergency air raid shelters. Their marks can still
be seen in the carved benches, improvised divisions
and temporary toilet facilities that remain to this
day. The walls too bear witness to their enforced
stay with graffiti including sketches of loved ones
and portraits of D’Annunzio and Mussolini.
There's even a "wedding chamber", with the
names of the betrothed and the date of the nuptials
engraved on the wall. We hope they were left this
space for the first hours of their marriage - but
this, along with the answer to many other mysteries,
we will never know.
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| by
DARIO
MORGANTE |
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July
2001
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THE SURVIVOR'S 
