The Piedigrotta Festival told by Gino Agnese

We are atNapoliin early September1955. These are the days ofPiedigrotta FestivalNeapolitan “the festival of festivals”, which has involved the whole city since the eighteenth century. “That Piedigrotta was the decisive stroke of luck for me,” he says with a smile, caressing the memories,Gino Agneserenowned journalist, essayist (his biographies of Boccioni and Marinetti are fundamental), founder of the magazine Mass Media, president of the Rome Quadrennial from 2002 to 2011.

All this without ever renouncing honestyNeapolitanness. The scenery of his childhood was fabulous: theReal Forest of Capodimontewhere the father was among the custodians. “My father who died in Capri in a military disaster”. He was a child, but he still has i in his mindAmerican bombingsthe worst when a bomb destroyed the building next to his and he and his family felt miraculous. ThereNaples of the alleysof the “ladies”, of thecigarette smugglingsea bathing in front of theCastel dell’Ovoand the art of making do.

Gino fu uno irregular studentwho went in and out of one institute to another, changing his “vocation” and address. Among other things, at the Academy of Fine Arts he followed a course given by maestro Emilio Notte as a private student. In short, someone who dove headlong into disparate undertakings (“I am of the zodiac sign of Pisces”, he justifies himself). And therePiedigrotta festival of 1955it was one of these.

Agnese, first of all, what is Piedigrotta?

“Il toponym deriva da una grottoda un tunnelwhich pierces the tuff of the hillPosillipofrom Mergellina to Fuorigrotta, direction Pozzuoli. Atunnel from the Roman erabefore the birth of Christ, narrow enough to allow a single cart to pass, which was joined by another in the 19th century, further enlarged in the fascist era. Aroad junctionnow, but withmito, literature, mystery, wedding ring alle spalle”.

Sacred and profane.

“In theRoman cavela Neapolitan Crypttook placerites in honor of Priapusgod of fertility, also narrated in the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. And in the surrounding area tradition has it that he is buriedVirgilio. Then the appropriation by theChristianity. At the foot of the cave there was a small temple dedicated to the High Middle AgesMadonna Hodegetriabecause a Byzantine image was venerated there. A century passes, and on the night between 7 and 8 September 1353, the Virgin appears, separately, to a friar, a nun and a hermit. Therechurchwould have been built on this occasion. And it would become a destinationdevoteesreunited in joy. Boccaccio writes of a “pederocto woman”, referring to the Virgin of the cave who helped women giving birth, theBourbonthey make a pilgrimage there as a display of power, an advertisement for their charisma: they arrive on golden carriages, preceded by an imposing parade. The last time, in 1859, with the sad gait ofFrancis IIaware of its sunset avenue after the war victories of the Franco-Piedmontese”.

So far the story. But the Piedigrotta Festival of the 1950s?

“Not the celebration of a city, but thecity ​​involved in the festival. Tens and tens of thousands of people gather, the goal issanctuary. Not a procession, mind you, but a festive procession. A river not of people, but rather ofpeople. Which progresses without a rule, but it is not chaos. Yes, it was ‘o votta votta’, pushing in the crowd, but without exaggerating. The wholeNapoliit spills into the streets: and mind you, the 1912 census certifies that the inhabitants were double those of Rome and three times those of Milan. They also came from what was then the suburbs: from Vomero, but also from Materdei or Secondigliano. Organized and recognizable in teams: some grouped with a paper trumpet, some with Menelik’s tongues… all then equipped withmappatella with taralliof the small stick on the shoulder, the nzerta, where they hungbunches of grapes. We ate not along the route, but near the church. The final two kilometers were the most exhilarating. From theMunicipal Villa al Seafrontalla Chiaia Rivierait was a joke fair.”

Which?

“Beh, la Menelik’s linguawhich in its swelling and deflating refers to the sexuality of Priapus, blown in the face of his neighbor. Or itduster: it consisted of a straw on top of which a paper bow was glued. A beautiful girl passed by and touched herself with this tool. There was no violence, no offense, it was play. But it happened that the boyfriend got angry. Another surprise, thecoppolone: a long paper cylinder which from the balconies of the first floor was suddenly lowered onto a traveller, imprisoning him from head to toe and then, oops, pulled up amidst laughter.”

Colors and sounds.

“Noise. We dance and sing to the rhythm ofnoisy instruments: putipu, cheats, scetavaiasse, caccavella. But then there’s the launch ofsongsand here it gets serious:Piedigrottait is also the cradle ofNeapolitan Song Festivalwhich until the 1950s was the song par excellence, there was no such thing as, say, the Emilian one, the Milanese one. ThereNeapolitan songit is not only or always low music, but it becomesloud musican author, is intertwined with opera, is linked to the glorious eighteenth centuryConservatory of San Pietro a Maiella. Its authors were calledsongwriters: there was that, likeSalvatore Gambardellawho didn’t know the music and whistled the tune (the exploit occurred with ‘O marenariello), which then someone else put on the staff and someone else provided the words. And then there were thefamous musicianslike Enrico de Leva, Luigi Denza, Eduardo di Capua. ANDlyricists-poets: Salvatore di Giacomo, Giovanni Capurro, Peppino Turco, EA Mario, Libero Bovio. Withimmortal titlesfrom ‘O sole mio to Funiculì, Funiculà, from E spingule francese to Maria Marì, all anticipated by Fenesta ca lucive and Te voyo bene assaje”.

But now let’s talk about his fatal Piedigrotta.

“I and other peers ofStudent Association of Young Italyof which I was president, we decided to participate in theparade of allegorical floatswhich was one of the highlights of the Festival. If we had won a prize, we could have used the money to print some of our own newspapers. It was precisely the1955mayor of NaplesAchille Lauro. We presented the project ‘A scola ‘e Pulecenella, curated by Francesco Fatica, an engineering student who is out of course but an excellent designer. It was accepted. In onecaravel pulled by sea horsesthree or four Pulcinellas landed in the Gulf of Naples, not caring about the large books on board, Latin, mathematics and Greek. The exaltation, in short, ofplayful spirit. The construction of the wagon took weeks in the improvised construction site in a square behind the university. The caravel was built on aAmerican busit was a war remnant, a three-axle vehicle lent by the Municipal Cleaning Service: we dismantled the cab and the sides of the body: madness, since the project envisaged that the driver could see through two portholes, making his way through the crowd. THEsea ​​horsesthey were fished out of the scene storage of theSan Carlo Theatre. The mermaids, in almost bathing suits, found the girls reluctant, but two busty students finally accepted the role and they were joined by belles de nuit recruited at the last moment in the Gallery. Between thePulcinellaimpersonated by university students, there was also an elderly actor-poet, who recited his verses into a loudspeaker: I am Pulecenella beautiful vuosto, ‘no little I know about it, and now I’m back fresh and healthy…During the parade all kinds of things happened, even a beginning of intoxication of the electrician who had found a place, with the generator, under the quarterdeck. But we wonthird prize…”.

And bad luck?

“The next day I went to the Leonardo da Vinci Institute where I was attending the coursedyer technical expert. I had to take an exam and asked the doorman why no one was there. And Don Peppino, taking off his hat, replied with lightning: because the exams were yesterday. Obviously I was rejected. But here are the cases of life, mine emerged from this disastergood luck. Since I had first attended a year of accounting, then abandoned the course, and there the Italian teacher, Corigliano, communist, unkempt hair, over fifty, told me that I wrote well. Since then I had made up my mind to do thejournalist. So, after my flop as a dyer expert, I landed in the mini editorial office ofThe CenturyI wrote news articles, helped by a colleague fromThe Morning. Then I was called to the Rome office… and little by little I learned totake flight…”

The overwhelming epic ofPiedigrotta Festivalhe hasn’t followed up for years. Arebirthan attempt was made in 2007, then silence. At most a few small onescommemorative eventin the churches of the neighborhood (“Quann’era Piererotta” on 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 11th September and the “Serenade to the Madonna” on 10th September in Santa Maria di Piedigrotta). He saysPasquale Espositodean of the journalists of the Third Page of Il Mattino: “I have fond memories of the Festival, as a child my father took me there. It’s a shame that it is no longer organized in the imaginative and sumptuous ways of the past, because by blendingtradition and modernityas I have often written, this could be passed downpopular eventfull of participation, between sacred and profane. For some years a talented actor who lives in the area,Benedetto Casilloorganize the evening in the church: oneprocessionup to the statue of the Madonna by fishermen, suggestive and intense. He also participates in itMario Maglionegood singer and guitarist, along with other artists. And the church is always packed.”