entry April 2005
The Vesuvian Villas
— the "Golden Mile"
In the early 1700s, the
eastern limit of the city of Naples was an actual wall,
more or less where the red belfry of the church of the Carmine and
the ruins of the old Carmine fortress still stand today
on via Marina. Before railways and great roads, to
venture beyond that point —that is, to hug the coastline
and proceed east along the slopes of the volcano and
then inland away from the bay of Naples, itself— meant
taking what was called the "Calabrian Road." The few
miles along that road, from the city to a point past
Vesuvius at Torre Annunziata, where the Sorrentine
peninsula starts to swing south, was undeveloped. Earlier Spanish development in
the 1500s and 1600s had been in the other direction, to
the west.
That changed with the arrival in the 1730s of the new Bourbon dynasty. In 1738, the
monarch, Charles III, started construction on one of his
four royal palaces, this one in Portici, on the slopes
of Vesuvius about five miles out of the city. In those
days, the area was bucolic —fertile and heavily wooded;
you could see the islands of Capri,
Ischia and Procida; the recently
discovered ruins of the Roman city of Herculaneum added some
Classical charm, and even the delicately smoking crater
of the volcano seemed perhaps more quaint than it should
have. (Understandable in an age that knew little of the
dynamics of exploding mountains). In short, it was a
nice place to build a palace. In the course of the 18th
century, members of the wealthy noble classes followed
the royal family in that direction and opened the area
with a series of spectacular estates and villas. The
villas, gardens, courtyards, fountains, arches and
terraces were the work of the finest architects of the
age: Vanvitelli, Fuga, Vaccaro,
and Sanfelice. So
spectacular was the splurge of building that the stretch
of road out of the city became known as the Miglio d'Oro—the
Golden Mile.
Today, those
estates are collectively called the "Vesuvian
Villas." Specifically, that term covers 121 of them,
defined as cultural heritage by a 1971 law that
established a foundation to recover them from the
ravages of the previous 250 years, a period that
included the laying of the first
railway in Italy exactly along the route of the
old road in 1839, the subsequent growth of industry, the
development of the industrial port, the aerial bombardments of
World War II, and the post-war, unbridled and
catastrophic land speculation and overbuilding in an
area that is now the most densely populated in Europe.
The possibility of saving what could be saved was noted
in a 1957 volume, Le
Ville vesuviane del Settecento (The Vesuvian
Villas of the 1700s) by Roberto Pane of the architecture
department of the University of Naples, the publication
of which fostered the formation of a consortium of the
Italian state, the Campania regional government and the
municipal governments of Portici, Ercolano, San Giorgio
a Cremano, Torre del Greco, Torre Annunziata, the five
towns along the old coastal road.
How is the program going? The villas themselves? I took
a bus ride and walk out there the other day. I'm not
sure what I expected. In my heart of hearts I wanted
that marvelous scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens the
door of her tornado-blown house and steps out into Oz,
at which point the film bursts out of dull black &
white into full color. I was going to cross the magic
line (right beneath the highway overpass near the rusted
oil refinery and industrial incinerator) and step off
the bus at the first stop in San Giovanni a Teduccio. In
the twinkling of an eye, the grime of years would
dissolve, and the broad Calabrian road would be as it
was then, stretching untold leagues away to the Great
Southern Sea. It would all be in Technicolor©, and
—here, I would cue the violins— I could start my voyage
of discovery. I would see Vesuvius smoking in the
background and Goethe taking notes along the roadside,
or maybe Goethe smoking in the background and Vesuvius
taking notes. A kindly coachman would stop and give me a
lift to the Royal Palace where benevolent monarch,
Charles, and his gracious consort, Maria Amalia,
would welcome me, feed me, and then let their 300-pound
Neapolitan mastiff hunting dog,
"Attila," frolic with me. (Note to myself: the last
scene needs some work.)
Having sobered up, I now report that the
string of 122 sites starts in the first community
adjacent to Naples to the east, San Giovanni a Teduccio.
The last one is in Ercolano. In general, the farther out
you move from the city, the better. That is, the
"villas" in San Giovanni deserve those "so-called"
quotation marks around villas; the non-descript buildings are
simply street addresses; some look abandoned and most
are totally unremarkable. The whole length of the road
is jammed beyond belief, creating the impression that
you could climb up to the roof of the first building and
walk the entire distance, stepping from roof to adjacent
roof for miles without ever touching the ground.
ex-Royal
Palace in Portici
Yet, a number of the villas in
Portici and Ercolano are now restored and serve as
cultural centers and residences. In between are ones
that don't look bad at all and are fully functional
apartment houses. The first site to be recovered was the
Villa Campolieto in Ercolano (photo, left). The
villa dates from 1755 and was one of the spectacular
projects of Vanvitelli. It was acquired by the Vesuvian
Villa consortium in 1978 and restored and opened in 1984
as the centerpiece of the entire project. Another
restored villa is the Villa Ginestre, the home of
Italy's greatest Romantic poet, Giacomo
Leopardi. A building that actually predates the
Bourbon arrival in Naples, it is up the slopes from
Ercolano and is an attraction for those on a "literary
tour" of southern Italy. Also, it may be cheating to
call the Bourbon
Palace in Portici one of the villas; after all, it was the villa (photo,
right). It still stands, Colossus-like, astride the old
road and is in good repair since it now houses the
Agricultural Department of the University of Naples.
I will settle for a gradual restoration of what can be
restored and the integration of that restored property
back into an area already well-endowed with items of
great interest. The nearby archaeological sites of
Pompeii, Herculaneum and
Oplontis are already on the
UNESCO World Heritage list. The stretch also contains
one of the world's finest historical
railway museums, and the premises of the Bourbon
Palace contain a scientifically important botanical
garden. Also, the Vesuvius national park is right next
door.
[see also The Villa d'Elboeuf
and The Villa Favorita.]
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