entry
Oct 2011
"On This Side of the Lighthouse"
Development of Lighthouses in and near Naples
First, an irrelevant item about lighthouses: the underlined phrase above the title is a strange expression not used since the unification of Italy (1861). Older texts printed in the Kingdom of Naples commonly referred to the island of Sicily as al di là del faro (beyond the lighthouse) and to the rest of the kingdom on the boot of Italy (where the capital city of Naples was located) as al di qua del faro (on this side of the lighthouse). The reference was to the lighthouse at Messina on the peninsular side of the strait between the "toe of the boot" and Sicily. The usage goes back to the Angevin rule of the kingdom in the 1300s and 1400s.
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The way the modern port is laid out owes much to the wave of Angevin construction which began in 1300 with the Maschio Angioino castle. The Angevins were the ones who put a main pier where it still is today, directly east of their castle, to complement the older smaller San Vincenzo pier to the west. They also located the large Arsenale (naval ship yard) immediately to the west of that San Vincenzo pier, still seen in this painting from 1700. That ship yard has since disappeared and, obviously, subsequent construction and renovation over the centuries has wrought great changes to the port area; yet, much of it is still recognizable. |
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Lighthouses or at least signal fires have
been around ever since early cave-sailor decided that he
would really like to sail into a harbor instead of into
the rocks next to the entrance. The transition from signal
fires to modern lighthouses (from wood to animal fats to
kerosene to electricity) is beyond the scope of this
entry; suffice it say that as splendid as we like to
imagine the Lighthouse at Alexandria (image, right—one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), ancient
lighthouses were probably not much better than a full moon
to help you see where you were sailing. the Fresnel lens
The
truly modern lighthouse had to await the genius of Augustin-Jean
Fresnel (1788–1827), the French engineer whose
design for a lens (now named for him) allowed the
construction of multi-part, thin, light lenses without the
size and weight required by lenses of conventional design.
Technically, such lenses are called catadioptric (reflectice/refractive)
and employ a series of separate, concentrically placed
lenses to produce a progression of "steps". The Fresnel
lens revolutionized lighthouses, focusing 85% of the light
of a lamp versus the 20% focused with the parabolic
reflectors of the time. The first such Fresnel lens was
installed in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth
of the Gironde estuary in France. Other places in the
world changed over as quickly as they could.
(The image, left, compares cross sections of
(1) a spherical Fresnel lens and (2) a conventional
spherical convex lens of equivalent power. The reduction
in material employed and, thus, weight is obvious.The Bourbons were restored to the throne of Naples in 1815. One of the marks of the "relaunching" of the dynasty was the attention paid to public works, particularly those in the important area of ports and harbors, naturally including lighthouses. The first Neapolitan scientist to propose the adoption of the new Fresnel system was physicist Macedonio Melloni (1789-1854), best remembered as the creator and first director of the Mt. Vesuvius geological observatory in 1841). In 1836, he proposed installing Fresnel lenses at the port of Naples and at Nisida. The installation of the Fresnel lens at the Nisida lighthouse occurred in July of 1841; local sources proudly called it "the first lens lighthouse on this side of the Alps." It was a great step forward for the kingdom in terms of keeping on a par with technical developments in the rest of Europe. That was also the year in which the Commission for Lighthouse and Beacons came into being with the task of applying the new system in the entire Gulf of Naples and eventually the rest of the kingdom. Melloni was in charge of the technical side; a number of others devoted themselves to architecture and design. Great effort was given to the design of these structures. The designers used the vocabulary of classical architecture—base, shaft, capital, dorian, fluting, etc.—in describing a lighthouse tower, for example. They weren't just putting up traffic-lights for boats; they were building coastal towers meant to please the eye and the spirit. Some of that is still evident in the photos, below. The commission decided to have 10 lighthouses as an initial goal; these were in the most obvious places: the Port of Naples (2), the island of Capri, Castellammare, Punta Campanella, Nisida, Baia, Capo Miseno, the island of Procida, and at Forio on the island of Ischia.
| Paintings from the period of the Grand Tour often included the Naples lighthouse. This version by Carlo Bonavia is from 1757. Some form of lighthouse stood on that spot from1487 to the 1930s. (See first photo, below.) |
Work on the lighthouses at
the port of Naples was begun in September 1841. By 1847, six
of the ten were complete. By 1850 attention turned elsewhere
in the kingdom, to the Calabrian and Sicilian coasts as well
as islands, including Ponza (see map, below), where the
structure was called "the first lighthouse in the Kingdom"
(meaning northernmost). In 1859 a General Plan for the Systematic Lighting of the
Coasts of the Kingdom 'On this Side of the Lighthouse'
was published. (There was a separate plan for Sicily.) The
plan called for 67 lighthouses; at the time of publication,
there were only 16 in existence. A royal decree approved the
building of 41 of the remaining 51. The rest were put off.
The study had also looked into the feasibility of restoring
and using some of the many old Saracen
towers along Italian coasts in order to defray
expenses. Indeed, one of the constant complaints of members
of the commission was that they were hindered by the
tightwad treasury of the kingdom; as a result, in spite of
the large, impressive Neapolitan fleet, the development of
lighthouses lagged behind the rest of Europe, including
other Italian states (still independent at the time) such as
Sardinia and Tuscany. The unification of Italy (1861)
changed the situation. In 1873 a commission for Ports,
Beaches and Lighthouses was established within the High
Council for Public Works and the first catalog of all
lighthouses in the new united Italy was published. ----->There
is a separate entry on Ponza here<-----
The illustration, right, shows the
location of lighthouses in and near the Gulf of Naples and
the Campania region in general. (A few are shown below.
Sooner or later, I may get them all.)For various reasons (such as modern electronic navigational aids aboard many vessels), lighthouses are not as necessary as they once were. (All sailors I have talked to, however, tell me that GPS navigation is fine etc. etc, but they really like to see (!) the light from the lighthouse at night.) Some elements of the lighthouse have, indeed, become, anachronisms; for example, to my knowledge, the only one of the lighthouses in the illustration that still employs a real, human lighthouse keeper is the one on Capri (see this link). There is more than just nostalgia here; there is something primordial and even mystical connected to lighthouses. Lucien Steil writes in "Metaphysical Archaeology of Lighthouses" in the American Arts Quarterly, Volume 27, number 2:
In control of visible and invisible dangers, in convivial serenity with the infinity of seas and skies, superbly coordinating the movements of ships, planets and waves, lighthouses are superbly lonesome and solitary, yet still an intrinsically integrated part of a meaningful, all-encompassing order. Lighthouses inhabit natural and metaphysical landscapes like compassionate hermits...
*note: The "focal plane" is an imaginary line drawn straight out from the middle of the optic (lens). The height of the focal plane is measured from the surface of the water and not from the base of the lighthouse. |
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The Old
Lighthouse
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Port of Naples  |
← This lighthouse is on the San Vincenzo pier extension at the western side of the entrance to the port of Naples, opposite the lighthouse shown directly below. Focal plane 15 m (49 ft); red flash every 3 seconds. The adjacent statue of San Gennaro is one of the icons of the city. |
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The Thaon di Revel lighthouse
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Cape Miseno  |
← The station was established in 1869. The original lighthouse was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt in 1954. Focal plane 80 m (262 ft); two white flashes every 10 seconds. Capo Miseno is a tall headland that marks the western end of the gulf. Mythologically, the cape overlooks the waters where Aeneas' comrade, Misenus, master of the sea-horn—the conch-shell—made "the waves ring" with his music and challenged the sea-god Triton to musical battle. |
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Punta Campanella
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Capri  |
← At Punta Carena, the SW tip of the island of Capri. Built in 1866. Focal plane: 73 meters (240 ft). It is one of the most important on the Italian coasts as to number of passing ships that rely on it. Rotating lamp w/3-sec. period seen from 25 nautical miles/46 km. |
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Port of Ischia (Molo Bagno)  |
Licosa |
← South of Naples but still in Campania, the isle of Licosa is just off Cape Licosa at the southern end of the gulf of Salerno. The structure is from 1951. Focal plane 13 m (43 ft); two white flashes every 10 s. The cape, isle and adjacent waters are part of the Cilento and Valle di Diano national park. |
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Sapri  |
Baia (Fortino Tenaglia) |
←Station established in 1856. Focal plane 13 m (43 ft); red light, 2 s on, 2 s off. 8 m (26 ft) round, red concrete tower with lantern and gallery. The station is directly below the massive Baia castle on a small island joined to the mainland by a sandbar. |
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Nisida |
Nisida (2)  |
← The station was established in 1841 and claimed to be the first modern lighthouse (meaning with a Fresnel lens—see text, above) in Italy. The round masonry tower is 10 m (33 ft) high and is attached to a small keeper's house. It is now inactive, but there is an active post light (focal plane 14 m/46 ft) that flashes green every 3 seconds. |
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Photo by W.C. Henderson |
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Ischia, Punta Imperatore  Update, Jan 2016.
update, July 2023. A German company plans to turn this into this tourist hotel. No further details yet.  |
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The lighthouse at Emperor Point on Ischia is important. The lighthouse is on the SW coast of the island of Ischia near the town of Panza. The station is from 1884, the building from 1916. Focal plane 164 m (538 ft); two white flashes every 15 s. 13 m (43 ft) round cylindrical masonry tower attached to the seaward side of a 2-story masonry keeper's house. Lighthouse painted white; lantern dome is gray metallic. It is the light on the port side of the approach to Naples from the SW, about 35 Km (20 nautical miles) from the lighthouse at Punta Carena on Capri (#6 on this list, above) on your starboard side, (unless you are in a rowboat and coming in backwards, in which case you are really on your own, pal!). The lighthouse is known for the fact that it had a woman lighthouse keeper, Lucia Capuano, who took over the lonely task when her husband died in 1937. |
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Ventotene
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Capo d'Orso (Maiori)
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←(As of Jan 2016-for sale) |
—*note: Alexandria lighthouse. The chances are good that it did look something like this. The image looks almost exactly like the Tower of Hercules in north-western Spain; that one is an ancient Roman lighthouse, restored, still in working order, and said to be modeled on the Alexandria lighthouse because it used to be called the Farum Brigantium, from the Greek pharos, the name of the island where the Greek lighthouse stood. The Tower of Hercules is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ^up
sources:
—Cirillo, Ornella. Illuminare le coste: i fari del golfo di Napoli nel XIX secolo [Illuminating the Coasts: Lighthouses in the Gulf of Naples in the 19th Century] from the website of the Italian Association of the History of Engineering. Not dated.
—Colombo, Antonio. "I Porti e gli Arsenali di Napoli" [The Ports and Shipyards of Naples] in Napoli Nobilissima, year 3, series in issues 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9. 1894.
—Spadetta, Pietro. "La Laterna del Molo" [the Pier Lantern] in Napoli Nobilissima, year 1, issue 7, pp. 109-111. 1892.
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