il bel lido luminoso: the planning of strada medinaceli in naples (1697)

49

Il bel lido luminoso: The Planningof Strada Medinaceli in Naples (1697)*

JORGE FERNÁNDEZ-SANTOS ORTIZ-IRIBAS

Arboribus Princeps ornavit, fontibus urbem

Giuseppe Valletta

Genteel Delight and Viceregal Patronage

Relying on his fine ear for the folklore and the chronicles of his nativeNaples, in 1892 the twenty-six-year-old Benedetto Croce published a seriesof three short articles on the Villa di Chiaia in which he masterfully summedup the history of what was initially but a humble borough of fishermendirectly opposite the seashore.1 What Croce first identified, and Cesare DeSeta analyzed some ninety years later, may be fairly described – using adistinctly modern term – as an uneven process of gentrification spanningfrom the sixteenth century to modern times.2 If, as Croce contends, in thefirst half of the Cinquecento the newly built palace of the Marquis della

* Research has been made possible by a grant awarded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung(Düsseldorf) to the project AZ 47/F/05: “Rome-Naples-Madrid 1677–1702. From theGolden Age of the Marquis del Carpio to the Duke of Medinaceli’s Arcadia.” Theauthor’s heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend (Jona, Switzerland)for reading this paper and for her enthusiastic support. A debt of gratitude is owed toDr. Tommaso Lomonaco (Archivio Storico Municipale di Napoli, hereafter ASMUN)and to Prof. Dr. Maria Teresa Acquaro Graziosi (Accademia dell’Arcadia and BibliotecaAngelica, Rome) for their unstinting help. The author’s current research at the UniversitatJaume I de Castelló is co-financed by the Ramón y Cajal Subprogram (Spanish Minis-try of Science and Innovation) and the European Social Fund (European Commission).

1 Benedetto Croce: La Villa di Chiaia (I), (II), and (III). In: Napoli Nobilissima: Rivista diTopografia ed Arte Napoletana, 1 (1892), nos. 1–2, 3, and 4, pp. 3–11, 35–39, and 51–53.

2 Cesare De Seta: Napoli (La città nella storia d’Italia). Bari, Rome 1981, pp. 62–63, 91–92, 127–128, 145–149, 169–171, and 197–200. On the historical development of Chiaia,see also Giancarlo Alisio: Il lungomare (Napoli: uomini e luoghi delle trasformazioniurbane 3). Naples 1989.

50

Fig.

1:

Fer

nand

o de

Gru

nenb

ergh

: P

lant

a yg

nogr

afic

a de

la

part

e de

la

Mar

ina

de l

a C

iuda

d de

Nap

oles

(16

91)

enco

mpa

ssin

g (f

rom

lef

t to

righ

t) P

osill

ipo,

Mer

gelli

na, C

hiai

a, P

izzo

falc

one

and

Cas

tel d

ell’O

vo, t

he H

arbo

r of

Nap

les

and

Cas

tel N

uovo

, the

Tor

rion

e de

l Car

min

e, a

ndth

e Po

nte

della

Mad

dale

na.

Arc

hivo

Gen

eral

de

Sim

anca

s (V

alla

dolid

).

51

3 The intermediate stage was described in the 1629 aerial view of Naples by AlessandroBaratta: Fidelissimae urbis Neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et nova delineatio.Ed. by Cesare De Seta and Gaetana Cantone. Naples 1986, pp. 37–38.

4 Giancarlo Alisio: Napoli nel Seicento. Le vedute di Francesco Cassiano de Silva. Naples1984, pp. 179–182.

Valle Siciliana towered above the typically commonplace dwellings liningthe long beach of Chiaia, by the end of the seventeenth century the numberof large, regular façades of more or less palatial distinction facing the seahad increased manifold.3 In conjunction with the rugged coastline south ofMergellina, the sandy Chiaia defined a large natural amphitheater thatrivaled the vast crescent-shaped Neapolitan bay stretching east of the prom-ontory of Pizzofalcone (fig. 1). Although the craggy, sloped shore betweenMergellina and the cape of Posillipo rendered access by land impractical,its privileged suburban location and unhindered exposure to the sea breezenevertheless made it an ideal spot for the aristocracy fleeing the summerheat of downtown Naples. Among those seeking the quiet solace ofMergellina, the Viceroy Ramiro Núñez de Guzmán, 2nd Duke of Medina delas Torres, embarked upon the construction of an impressive palace for hiswife Anna Carafa, 5th Princess of Stigliano. Equipped with its own landingstage and enjoying awesome views of Naples and its environs, the PalazzoDonn’Anna was never completed. Nonetheless, it stands as a symbol of thearistocratic grip on Mergellina and Posillipo during the Spanish viceregalregime. Many if not most of the Spanish viceroys could not resist the de-lights afforded by the villeggiatura at Posillipo. The formidable Gaspar deHaro, 7th Marquis del Carpio, was particularly fond of the Casino de’Gennaro di Cantalupo at Mergellina in which he staged theatricals for pri-vate audiences. Like his predecessors, Luis de la Cerda, 9th Duke ofMedinaceli and next-to-last Spanish viceroy of Naples, boarded the sump-tuous viceregal gondola to travel the distance from the dockyard at the footof the Palazzo Reale to the Cantalupo palace, whose décor he had com-pletely refurbished.

A large drawing by Francesco Cassiano de Silva records succinctly but ac-curately the many villas besprinkling Mergellina and hilly Posillipo at theend of the seventeenth century.4 Even though differences in scale were attimes noteworthy, the various casini and palazzetti were mostly medium-sized. Surely, owning a fashionable summer residence in the area signalleda family’s considerable wealth and its social rank. Significantly, BiagioAldimari’s three-volume Historia genealogica della famiglia Carafa includednot only an engraving of the family’s main town residence – the Palazzo delPrincipe di Butera at San Domenico – but also a second one, signed byF. Pesche and based on a drawing by the engineer Sebastiano Indelicato,

Il bel lido luminoso: The Planning of Strada Medinaceli in Naples (1697)

52

depicting the “Palazzo dell’Ecc.mo Principe di Butera e Rocella nella rivieradi Posilippo.”5 Perhaps better than any other architectural feature could,the panoramic terrace of the Carafa di Butera residence summarized thefascination exerted on the Neapolitan nobility by the unique combinationof antique ruins and unspoiled natural beauty to either side of Cape Posillipo.Unlike the aristocratic prestige enjoyed by Mergellina and Posillipo, theBorgo di Chiaia was the complex result of the attempt to superimpose agenteel, residential program onto pre-existing popular strata. One of thedefining characteristics of the Neapolitan urban fabric was the inextrica-bility of popular and aristocratic modes of dwelling, to the extent thatpalatial residences typically incorporated countless workshops, shops, re-positories, and apartments rented out to individuals and families of varioussocial backgrounds. It was not at all unusual for undistinguished or hap-hazard structures to be grafted onto more comely ones, on occasion render-ing the precise volumetric definition of the aristocratic palazzo a ratherelusive task. Indeed, the Neapolitan palace, unlike its Tuscan counterpart,emerged as a mostly shallow, façade-oriented building that helped definethe city’s main thoroughfares.6 The irregular skyline of the “Strada di Chiaia”as recorded by Cassiano de Silva shortly after the completion of Medinaceli’snew tree-lined walkway in 1697 betrayed to a considerable extent the com-posite nature of the urban fabric of Naples (fig. 2). In spite of Cassiano’sefforts to regularize its contours, the differences in height and width arehard to miss.7 Whether standing in rows of comparable structures or nextto palaces, unremarkable single or double-bay buildings punctuate the street.This, of course, would not have mattered much had the street’s profile beenlooked at merely as the intersection of a long swath of the city’s fabric withthe line defined by the seashore. Yet the increasing number of noble andwell-to-do residences in Chiaia contributed to a very long and nearly straighturban façade being built up, one for which issues of civic decorum becameincreasingly relevant. Croce made the important point that it was “quitestrange” to realize that until the very end of the seventeenth century “no-body should have thought about improving a place as cheerful as Chiaiawith public works.”8 In fact, the work accomplished on the Riviera di Chiaiain the first two years of tenure of the viceroy Medinaceli (1696–1697) in-troduced a new standard of civility. The seaside promenade that emerged,renamed Strada Medinaceli after its promoter, deserves a significant placein the history of both gardening and urbanism.

5 Biagio Aldimari: Historia genealogica della famiglia Carafa. Naples 1691, vol. 1, in-serted between pp. 306 and 307.

6 Vincenzo Scamozzi: L’Idea della architettura universale. Venice 1615, lib. III, pp. 240–243.7 Alisio: Napoli nel Seicento. 1984, pp. 171–177, esp. pp. 174–175.8 Croce: La Villa di Chiaia. 1892, p. 9.


53

Fig.

2: F

ranc

esco

Cas

sian

o de

Silv

a: V

edut

a O

ccid

enta

le d

ella

Str

ada

di C

hiai

a (c

. 170

0) s

how

ing

the

new

Str

ada

Med

inac

eli.

Alis

io: N

apol

i nel

Seic

ento

(cf

. no

te 4

), p

p. 1

74–1

75.

54

The most obvious Neapolitan precedent for the Strada Medinaceli was thesuburban promenade at Poggio Reale, which also combined rows of treeswith fountains (fig. 3). Since documents dating from 1698 and 1699 attestto far-reaching repairs carried out on the early seventeenth-century fountainsof Poggio Reale,9 it would be reasonable to assume that Medinaceli con-ceived the new promenade at Chiaia and the restoration of the one owed tohis predecessor Juan Alonso Pimentel de Herrera y Enríquez, 5th Count-Duke of Benavente,10 as parallel moves to better Naples. Yet the Passeggiodi Poggio Reale differed significantly on a conceptual level from the “newstreet” of Chiaia. The former, which lacked a clear-cut urban function,resembled late Cinquecento and early Seicento public walks such as theParco delle Cascine at Florence or the Cours-la-Reine at Paris. Arguably,the viceroy Benavente may have been influenced also by the Paseo del Pradoin Madrid. In fact, Poggio Reale falls neatly within the seventeenth-centurydevelopment of semi-public walks in major European cities.11 Whereas these

9 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,31 [olim 1858]. Vol[ume] P[ri]mo Banni, 1552 ad 1700, fols. 240–241.

10 Mercedes Simal López: Don Juan Alfonso Pimentel, VIII conde-duque de Benavente, yel coleccionismo de antigüedades: inquietudes de un virrey de Nápoles (1603–1610).In: Reales Sitios, 42 (2005), no. 164, pp. 30–49, esp. pp. 34–35.

11 Pierre Lavedan, Jeanne Hugueney, and Philippe Henrat: L’urbanisme à l’époque moderne.XVIe–XVIIIe siècles (Bibliothèque de la Société Française d’Archéologie). Paris, Ge-neva 1982, p. 75.

Fig. 3: Anonymous: View of the Promenade at Poggio Reale, Naples (s.d.) designed byGiovanni Antonio Nigrone. Madrid, Museo del Prado.


55

undoubtedly paved the way for the widespread eighteenth-century successof public gardens, it must be emphasized that access was generally restrictedto those of seemly appearance. The fact that these preferably suburbanwalks were designed with horse-drawn carriages in mind proves furtherthat they were intended as often as not for the exclusive enjoyment of thearistocracy and the bourgeoisie. The Nuova Strada Medinaceli on the Ri-viera di Chiaia boldly transformed an urban beachfront over a mile longinto a public garden – although, as we shall see, the typically aristocraticpasseggio, or evening carriage ride, was also privileged at Chiaia. Two im-portant considerations set apart the Strada Medinaceli from earlier exam-ples. To begin with, there are no Italian precedents for a garden-like seasidepromenade of comparable scope. Secondly, the unprecedented garden-street-seafront, which encompassed economic, cultural and scientific objectives,responded to an explicit intellectual program that foreshadowed Enlight-enment attitudes. Although the French-born Neapolitan publisher AntoineBulifon predicted it would rank among the great cours of Europe, its exist-ence and fame were, according to Croce, ephemeral.12 Modern scholarshiphas neglected, however, to account for the consistent upkeep of the paving,plantations, water supply, drainpipes, and fountains of the Medinaceli prom-enade well into the eighteenth century. This realization underscores theneed to study its manifold implications all the more carefully.13

On 3 March 1688, the Count of Santisteban wrote to the King of Spainendorsing the pleas of the “gentleman and ladies” of Naples; they hadasked him to reopen the seashore walk at Santa Lucia, which had beenclosed off by his predecessor, the late Marquis del Carpio.14 Gaspar de

12 Antoine Bulifon: Journal du Voyage d’Italie de l’Invincible, & glorieux MonarquePhilippe V. Roy d’Espagne, et de Naples. Naples 1704, p. 28: “[…] la promenade aucours nouveau de Chiaya, qui est la plus belle & la plus delicieuse promenade d’Italie[…].” Benedetto Croce quoted Bulifon’s Le guide des étrangers (1702) where it wasforecast that “ce cours” would soon become “l’un des plus beaux et des plus magnifiquesde l’Europe.” The Neapolitan scholar disagreed: “La predizione del Bulifon non s’averòse non molto più tardi, perché il passeggio così disposto dal Medinaceli non solo nons’andò svolgendo ed accrescendo, ma, come sembra, cadde quasi in abbandono, neisettanta ed ottanta anni seguenti.” Croce: La Villa di Chiaia. 1892, p. 10. The Frenchnoun “cours” referred specifically to promenades designed for evening carriage rides incapital cities. Daniel Rabreau: La passeggiata urbana in Francia nel Seicento e nelSettecento: fra pianificazione e immaginario. In: L’architettura dei giardini d’Occidentedal Rinascimento al Novecento. Ed. by Monique Mosser and Georges Teyssot. Milan1990, pp. 301–312, esp. p. 307.

13 Indeed, when Ferdinando IV ordered the construction of the Villa Reale di Chiaia on8 June 1778 the Strada Medinaceli had not been, as some authors maintain, cancelledfrom memory after decades of neglect.

14 Archivo General de Simancas, Secretarías Provinciales, lib. 348, fols. 289v–291r.


56

Haro’s unpopular move was apparently dictated by concerns regarding thesafety of the Alcalá bulwark. Yet the military engineers consulted bySantisteban concurred: there were absolutely no grounds for keeping thewall that prevented the public from entering the bulwark. On their advice,Santisteban recommend that it be torn down swiftly to allow the localaristocracy to enjoy again “the fresh air and amusement afforded by such aplace in the summer.” King Carlos II and the Consejo de Italia at Madridagreed. More than eighty years before, the Count of Benavente conceivedthe elitist Poggio Reale promenade in order to provide “occasione di delizia”for the Neapolitans. Like the Riviera di Chiaia, the huddled buildings atthe foot of Mount Echia, including the Chiesa di Santa Lucia a Mare, hadhad to make way for affluent residents. Earlier that year, the fashionableTommaso d’Aquino, later 5th Prince of Castiglione and then styled Princeof Feroleto, settled with his new wife Fulvia Pico della Mirandola in thelavishly decorated new apartments of the family’s seaside palace at SantaLucia.15 But like the nearby Chiaia, the popular roots of Santa Lucia provedresilient. Neither neighborhood shed entirely its, to quote Giuseppe Galasso,“inter-classist” character.16 Throughout the seventeenth century, beginningwith Benavente’s Poggio Reale, viceroys of Naples sought to ingratiate them-selves with the aristocracy, particularly by promoting amenities that wouldensure seasonal delight. Santa Lucia was a fashionable area thanks to itsgentle maritime breeze, greenery and fountains. Santisteban seized a wel-come opportunity to improve his standing with the city’s nobility by revers-ing Carpio’s ban. He accomplished this at the cheap price of tearing downa barrier the cost of which did not exceed eighty ducats. Pedro Antonio deAragón (one of Santisteban’s predecessors) equipped the Nuova Darsena –a basin whose actual contribution to the Neapolitan harbor was highlycontroversial – with a surrounding public walk for carriages graced with aseries of ornamental fountains and plants.17 Aragón’s hopes of attractingthe nobility to the sloped perimeter of the Darsena, however, proved fleet-ing. Seemingly, the prospect of circling the stagnant waters of the basin

15 Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: “Sin atender a la distancia de payses”… El fastonupcial de los príncipes de Feroleto entre Mirandola y Nápoles. In: Reales Sitios, 43(2006), no. 167, pp. 28–49.

16 Giuseppe Galasso: Aspetti della megalopoli napoletana nei primi secoli dell’età moderna.In: Mégalopoles méditerranéennes. Géographie urbaine rétrospective (Collection del’École française de Rome 261). Ed. by Claude Nicolet, Robert Ilbert, and Jean-CharlesDepaule. Paris, Rome 2000, pp. 565–575, esp. p. 571.

17 Elisabeth Sladek: Pedro of Aragon’s Plan for a “Private Port” (Darsena) in Naples.Reconstruction and Genesis of a Classical Building Type. In: Parthenope’s Splendor:Art of the Golden Age of Naples (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania StateUniversity 7). Ed. by Jeanne Chenault and Scott Munshower. University Park (Pennsyl-vania) 1993, pp. 362–395, esp. p. 367.


57

under the scrutiny of the viceroy standing in the newly built Belvedere soonlost its appeal to the aristocracy.18

Spanish viceroys were aware that, should they wish to leave a perma-nent mark on Naples, the best means at hand was to sponsor public worksthat could reach completion rapidly. Based on a renewable three-year ten-ure, the viceregal office in Naples had not once extended beyond the ten-year mark since 1571. Such temporal limits discouraged grandiose projects.The erection of the new Palazzo Reale in the early seventeenth centurywould surely count as an exception. However, it was not seen as the projectof a single viceroy, the Count of Lemos, but as one involving the SpanishCrown as well as many of Lemos’s successors. The arguably most able andintelligent Spanish viceroy of the seventeenth century, the Marquis delCarpio, was praised for his enlightened policies and, significantly, for hisutter lack of interest in leaving behind an architectural or sculptural me-mento bedecked with his coat of arms. The only major project he spon-sored in Naples, the reinforcement of the military defenses on and aboutthe Chiatamone, which incorporated a sloping ramp intended to connectthe Presidio di Pizzofalcone with the seashore, was stopped short by theCouncil of State in Madrid.19 In fact, Carpio’s walling up of the main pub-lic access to the Santa Lucia walk was directly linked with his decision tostrengthen the military outposts in that area. Like Benavente, Aragón orSantisteban – but unlike Carpio – Medinaceli entertained the idea of in-creasing his popularity (and eventually ensuring his posthumous fame) bylending his support to public works in the city of Naples. It would be fair –and to some extent ironic – to state that the standard of efficiency andincorruptibility set by Carpio, which associated his name with a short-lived“golden age” to which successive Spanish and Austrian viceroys wouldrefer with admiration, enshrined his name in the Neapolitan memory bet-ter than any physical monument could.20

Medinaceli, a nephew of Carpio by marriage, modeled his governmenton Carpio’s. Indeed, Luis de la Cerda’s all-out war on smuggling recalledGaspar de Haro’s unremitting campaigns against banditry. Carpio reliedfor both private and public commissions on the Roman-born engineer andartist Philipp Schor, much as Medinaceli would later turn to Philipp’s younger

18 Innocenzo Fuidoro [Vincenzo D’Onofrio]: Giornali di Napoli dal MDCLX alMDCLXXX (Cronache e documenti per la Storia dell’Italia meridionale dei secoli XVIe XVII 5–8). Edited by Franco Schiltzer, Antonio Padula, and Vittoria Omodeo. Naples1934–1943, vol. 2 (1938), pp. 94, 151, 217, and 220.

19 Carlo Celano: Notitie del bello, dell’antico, e del curioso della Città di Napoli. Naples1692, vol. 2, giorn. V, p. 86.

20 Giovanni Sances de Luna: Galeria erudita, morale, e politica esposta alla publica vedutadel Mondo. Naples 1697, pp. 120–122.


58

brother Christoph for similar reasons. Philipp Schor supervised the execu-tion of a series of seven ornate fountains designed in Rome for Carpio,including a scaled-down version of the Four Rivers fountain by Bernini atPiazza Navona. All seven fountains were intended for Carpio’s suburbanresidence in Madrid and were shipped accordingly to Spain at various pointsin time.21 Some striking parallelisms emerge. Both Carpio and Medinaceliresided in Rome and, as Spanish ambassadors before the Holy See, becameacquainted with the Roman artistic milieu in consecutive periods (1677–1682 and 1687–1696, respectively). Both turned to the Schor atelier for awide range of commissions, including, but not limited to, furniture or ar-chitectural ephemera. Both took with them to Naples one of the Schorbrothers: Philipp accompanied Carpio to Naples in 1683 and Christophfollowed exactly the same path in 1696, to serve Medinaceli. In light ofthese resemblances it would be tempting to view Carpio’s seven fountainsas a precedent for Medinaceli’s twelve fountains at Chiaia. Concerningtheir stylistic attribution, which we shall not address here, it is indeed rea-sonable to assume that the seven fountains for the Marquis del Carpiowere designed in the Schor workshop in Rome under Philipp’s direct super-vision, and that the most significant among the Chiaia fountains were de-vised by Christoph in Naples shortly after his arrival. Yet the differencesthat set both commissions apart are equally if not more important. WhatCarpio had in mind was a rhetorical program that would read as a memo-rial to his accomplishments, particularly as a patron of the arts in Rome.The fountains were to be installed in what was by no means a public gar-den, the Huerta de San Joaquín in Madrid. It would have not been accessi-ble to the madrileños but to distinguished guests with whom the symbolickeys to the program would conceivably have been shared. Moreover, theuse of costly materials such as porphyry and gilt bronze in some of thefountains would point to their intended installation in garden pavilions orthe like. Although the textual and visual evidence that would help interpretCarpio’s intent is missing, it is nonetheless clear that the design and execu-tion of the seven fountains responded to a very private agenda. As men-tioned before, it would seem Carpio did not envision anything comparableto memorialize his otherwise memorable lustrum as viceroy of Naples. Whenconsidering the fountains for the Chiaia passeggio, we face a vastly differ-ent situation. Medinaceli aimed at a public memorial to his actions as vice-roy, one that would outlast his government. Fortunately, the textual andvisual evidence that has survived allows for a fairly accurate reconstruction

21 Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: Las fuentes romanas de Don Gaspar de Haro: delaplauso efímero a la eterna fama. In: Montorio: Cuadernos de trabajo de la RealAcademia de España en Roma, 2 (2003–2004), pp. 60–80.


59

of the Duke of Medinaceli’s objectives, which may be defined as politicaland cultural. Set off against the extraordinary complexity and vibrancy ofthe intellectual life of Naples in the closing years of the Seicento, the NuovaStrada di Chiaia requires us to take into account the aspirations of themiddle-class intelligentsia that supported Medinaceli.

The Noblest of Promenades versus the Populace of Naples

Given all the actors and offices involved and the dense and articulate cul-tural program reflected in the garden-like promenade, it is surprising thatit should have materialized so soon after Medinaceli arrived in Naples asthe newly elected viceroy on 20 March 1696. As early as November 1696,work on the new street was already well underway. To be sure, on 25 Feb-ruary 1697, a municipal decree established the dimensions of the squareblocks of stone from Pozzuoli required for paving the new street and an-nounced that bidding was open to all interested suppliers and contractors.22

At this point the leveling of the earth and the bedding of cement and rubbleonto which the “sassi di Pizzuolo” were to be laid may be safely assumedto have been completed. According to the local gazette, on 8 September1697, the viceroy and vicereine, accompanied by an impressive train ofcourtiers and servants, attended the celebrations honoring the Nativity ofOur Lady at the Madonna di Piedigrotta, located at the further end of theRiviera di Chiaia.23 The readers of the gazette were informed that all inattendance were delighted by the new and almost complete paved prom-enade and by the many beautiful fountains, all of which gushed forth wa-ter in various ways and were embellished with potted citruses and everlast-ing flowers (fig. 4). There was good reason to be impressed: the varioussources point to a public avenue for taking a promenade that was over amile long, in all likelihood a miglio napoletano measuring 1845.69 m.24

Perhaps the precise length of the promenade raised confusion at the time.

22 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata, 31[olim 1858]. Vol[ume] P[ri]mo Banni, 1552 ad 1700, fol. 224.

23 Gazzetta di Napoli, no. 38 (10 September 1697).24 Antonio Bulifon: Giornale del Viaggio d’Italia dell’Invittissimo, e glorioso Monarca

Filippo V. Re delle Spagne, e di Napoli. Naples 1703, p. 22: “[…] della bella, edamenissima strada di Chiaja, posta lunga il mare, che ultimamente, quantunque fusselunga piu che un miglio […]” For the metric-system equivalent of the pre-1840 miglionapoletano, see Angelo Martini: Manuale di metrologia ossia misure, pesi e monete inuso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli. Turin 1883, p. 394.


60

The stretch of land from one end to the other of the present Riviera diChiaia – that is from the back of Santa Maria della Vittoria to the intersec-tion of the present Via Piedigrotta with Via Giordano Bruno – measurescirca 1600 m, evidently short of the miglio mark. It is possible that whatcontemporary sources meant to record was the running length of the pavedstreet, which extended further west to reach the Piedigrotta sanctuary it-self and further east to link up with the Santa Lucia walk. However, in hisremarkably detailed rendering of the new Strada Medinaceli at Chiaia,Francesco Cassiano de Silva did not provide a ball-park estimate but a verydefinite figure for its overall length: 892 pies geométricos (equivalent to aninadequately short 265 m).25 Since Cassiano was praising the street as one

25 Alisio: Napoli nel Seicento. 1984, pp. 174–175. The minuscule and nearly illegibleSpanish text at the foot of the veduta reproduced by Giancarlo Alisio actually reads:

Fig. 4: Anonymous: Oneof the Fountains of the StradaMedinaceli Shown under theCoat of Arms of the Dukeof Medinaceli (1698).Rosso: Otii (cf. note 73),ante p. 1 [BNNVE; BibliotecaBrancacciana 101.D.27(9)].


61

of the feats by which Medinaceli was to be remembered, it is quite odd thatit should turn out to be so disappointingly short. In fact, one reasonableexplanation is that Cassiano wrote down pies but actually meant pasos.The most logical way to measure the garden would have been to start atthe first fountain and proceed all the way to the last one, particularly sosince these two were by far the most significant of the series of twelvelining the new street. Both functioned as monumental termini marking thefurthermost ends of the promenade. The measure of 892 pasos geométricos(or 1646 m) is actually consistent with the relative position of the extremesof the riviera. Whereas the length of the paved avenue may have been slightlyover the Neapolitan mile, perhaps even close to 2 km, the promenade proper,which was indicated by the presence of willow trees and fountains, ran forsomewhat less: the 1646 m that may be deduced from correcting Cassiano’s892 pies to pasos are consistent with the cartographic evidence providedby the Duke of Noja’s map of 177526 as well as with Cassiano’s view ofcirca 1700 (fig. 2).

The approximate mile-length course of the Medinaceli Street was im-pressive enough to be publicized widely. It had the unrivalled advantageof an awesome view of the sea framed by a continuous row of trees. Inpoint of fact, Medinaceli was shrewd enough to take advantage of a pre-existing water-supply system, which included nine fountains for public use,put in place by the Count of Benavente in the early seventeenth century.We mentioned before the Poggio Reale promenade, with twin rows of wil-low trees to either side, as the only remarkable Neapolitan precedent forMedinaceli’s avenue, which was also lined by willows. Yet the Count ofBenavente does not seem to have envisioned a similar walk for Chiaia,

“llamase este Passeo en lengua Napolitana Chiaia, que quiere decir Playa, y en el sobretener 892 pies geometricos de largo, hay m.s y muy nobles Palacios con mucha PlebeMarinaresca, y fuè adornado de arboles del un Cabo à otro de orden del Ex.mo S.r

Duque de Medina Celi siendo Virrey, añadiendo alg.s mas fuentes de las q[ue] hauia,aunq[ue] no puestas en hilera, como se ueen ahora. està delineado con tantapuntualidad q[ue] no solo se expresan los Palacios, y casas, como ellas son, pero sepueden contar los balcones, uentanas, puertas grandes, y pequeñas, tiendas y callesq[ue] se interponen con la mas indiuidual uista de la Ribera, q[ue] forma unapacibilissimo Teatro uista desde la Mar, siguiendole despues à Mediodia la otra uistadel delicioso Pusilipo expressa en el siguiente pliego n.o 49 dedicado al s.r D. Juan deTorres, y Medrano Sec.rio de guerra &.” Francesco Cassiano de Silva: Reyno de Napolesanotomizado de la pluma de Don Fran.co Cassiano de Silva [Biblioteca Nazionale diNapoli Vittorio Emanuele III (hereafter BNNVE), ms. XVII.26, tav. 48 (Vedutaoccidentale della strada di Chiaia)].

26 Giovanni Carafa, Duca di Noja: Mappa Topografica della Città di Napoli e de’ suoicontorni. Naples 1775 [BNNVE, Sezione Napoletana, VII.A.1].


62

nor was Poggio Reale paved. Once he made sure that water from the Nea-politan formali reached Santa Lucia, the conscientious Count must havethought it convenient to provide the neighboring Chiaia with sources ofwater distributed more or less regularly along the shore. Benavente fore-shadowed none of the scenographic qualities of Medinaceli’s street. To be-gin with, the dense fabric of late-Seicento Chiaia defined an urban façadeof impressive length which opened up new possibilities that Benaventecould have hardly imagined. The reliable Cassiano de Silva tells us thatMedinaceli “added some fountains” to those that were already in place, aprobable reference to those installed by Benavente. If all nine were in goodcondition at the time, the new fountains commissioned by Medinaceli werebut three, including of course the two terminal ones. It seems likely thatat least some of Benavente’s fountains required extensive repairs, and per-haps a few were discarded and substituted by new ones. Cassiano makesclear that the extant fountains were not arranged in a line before workon the new street began.27 The alignment must have entailed relocating afair number of Benavente’s almost century-old fountains: a sound deci-sion considering that the fountains were now required to border the newstreet.

The choice of willow trees was of course dictated by the shade theyprovided in the summer. Unlike Poggio Reale or the most celebrated publicwalks of the seventeenth century, the Strada Medinaceli had a single row oftrees.28 The length of the street and maintenance costs may have beenfactored in, but it must also be said that double or triple rows were presum-ably discarded to avoid blocking the view of the sea of dwellers and passers-by. A long, single line of trees contributed to creating a permeable spatialand visual barrier, while multiple rows would have diminished the effect ofthe grandiose vistas on those promenading in carriages – one should notlose sight of the fact that the westernmost sector of the walk was an ideal

27 “[…] añadiendo alg.s mas fuentes de las q[ue] hauia, aunq[ue] no puestas en hilera,como se ueen ahora […]”, Cassiano de Silva: Reyno de Napoles (note 25 above), tav.48.

28 [Anonymous]: Racconto di varie notizie accadute nella città di Napoli dall’anno 1700al 1732 [I]. In: Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 31 (1906), no. 3, pp. 430–508, esp. p. 455: “Duca di Medina Celi […] per la memoria, che di se ha lasciato,essendosi per opera sua fatta fare la strada nel Borgo di Chiaja, per commodo delpasseggio, tutta lastricata, ed ornata di fontane da passo in passo, con una rinchiera dialberi di Salici per far ombra, e riparare il sole a’ passaggieri in tempo d’està, essendoprima appunto come si ritrova la strada del Borgo di Loreto oggidì, rotta e fangosa, edil passeggio delle Carozze era alla Strada di Toledo, che rendevasi angusta alla moltitudinedelle Carozze della Città […]”


63

spot from which to take in the awe-inspiring Vesuvius.29 Large basole wereused to pave the street in order to facilitate the passage of horse-drawncarriages.30 Some authors mention the presence of benches, though there isno conclusive evidence to assume they were part of the original promenade.31

Simplicity and grandeur were of the essence. From a very early datemunicipal authorities showed concern for protecting the three basic com-ponents of the project: the pavement, the fountains, and the trees. On29 November 1697, immediately after the completion of the new prom-enade, the deputies of the Tribunal of the Fortifications, Roads, and Watersof Naples met at San Lorenzo Maggiore. One of Medinaceli’s key advisors,Restaino Cantelmo, 7th Duke of Popoli, presided in his capacity as thetribunal’s superintendent. A decree was issued announcing the street’s newname – Strada Medinaceli in honor of the viceroy – and warning that cartdrivers were to stay off the paved course or else face a twenty-four-ducatfine and the loss of their cart. The same fine was set for those daring todamage, tear down, or steal the (budding) trees.32 Popoli and the deputieswere concerned about the maintenance of the street and probably fearedthat the uninterrupted passage of heavy cartloads would eventually dam-age the pavement. The avowed objective of the street was to provide “com-fort and delight” for the Neapolitan public, by which the deputies clearlymeant those who could afford a carriage. Ease of transport was paramountonly insofar as it ensured the enjoyment of the genteel classes. It did notencompass the efficient delivery of goods, nor was the presence of the lowerclasses promenading in unseemly carts anticipated as part of the “comodoe delitia di questo Publico.” Less than five months later, a new decree was

29 [Anonymous]: Relazione della Famosissima Festa nel giorno della Gloriosa S. Anna à26. di Luglio 1699. Per solennizare il Nome, che ne porta la Maestà della ReginaNostra Signora M. Anna di Neoburgo fatta celebrare nella Riviera di Chiaja, e nelloScoglio di Mergellina dall’Eccellentissimo Signore D. Luigi dela Cerda, e d’AragonaDuca di Medina Celi, d’Alcalà, &c Vicerè, e Capitan Generale in questo Regno. Naples1699 [BNNVE, Manoscritti e Rari, S.Q. XXV.L.37(4)]: “Adunque nella mentovata StradaMedina Celi, che si distende colà nell’amenissima Riviera di Chiaja, sito adequatissimoper festeggiamenti Regali, resa per se stessa deliziosa dal vicino mare, che le bacia illembo, e per la terminata dilettevolissima veduta del nostro Cratero […].”

30 Domenico Confuorto: Giornali di Napoli dal MDCLXXIX al MDCIC (Cronache edocumenti per la Storia dell’Italia Meridionale dei Secoli XVI e XVII). Ed. by NicolaNicolini. Naples 1930–31, vol. 2, p. 249.

31 Ferdinando Ferrajoli: Palazzi e fontane nelle piazze di Napoli (Collana di culturanapoletana 22). Naples 1973, p. 161. Giancarlo Alisio: Il “passeggio di Chiaia”: dagliinterventi vicereali ai futuri progetti. In: Il passeggio di Chiaia: Immagini per la storiadella Villa Comunale. Naples 1993, pp. 11–12.

32 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,31 [olim 1858]. Vol[ume] P[ri]mo Banni, 1552 ad 1700, fols. 218 and 228.


64

issued; this time safeguarding the street’s third basic component, the twelvefountains, was uppermost on the Tribunale’s agenda. Setting again as theirpriority the “greater delight of the passers-by,” the deputies fixed a six-ducat fine to be paid by anyone who dared use the basins of the fountainsto wash clothes or the like.33 Proving their determination to curb this prac-tice, they promised one third of the fine (or two ducats) to whoever re-ported the offence. The Strada Medinaceli having been conceived as “luogodi delitia,” they decried the soiling of the water resulting from turningornamental fountains into a washing place. Here we find fresh proof thatthe three basic constituents of the street – pavement, trees, and fountains –were not intended to be put to uses other than those envisioned by the city’selite.

On 5 September 1698, the deputies convening at the cloister of SanLorenzo Maggiore addressed a new challenge to the seemliness of thestreet.34 The inhabitants of Chiaia had traditionally disposed of sewage atsea. Yet the sight of people carrying sewage across the street on their wayto the beach clashed with the “delight” the street was meant to afford tostrollers. A fine of six ducats would be imposed on anybody seen in thevicinity of the street with vessels containing sewage, except immediatelybefore daybreak. From the beginning of the evening passeggio until fouro’clock in the morning, sewage buckets were to be kept out of sight. Otherdwellers had apparently taken to spilling sewage and dishwater onto thestreet, oblivious to the mud and stench they inflicted on others. Unless theyceased doing so immediately, any basins near the street belonging to themwould have to be relocated to the beach after a fortnight at their ownexpense. Should they fail to comply, the Tribunale would undertake therelocation and charge them accordingly. Indeed, this problem must haveproved particularly intractable; the overflow of waste water from such ba-sins was almost as inevitable as was the temptation to spill sewage intothem when in haste. Later documents show that, lacking a better alterna-tive, the Tribunale financed the installation of washbasins and wells on thebeach, none of which caused the residents to refrain from using the fountainsas troughs for their domestic animals or for washing their dirty laundry.35

As late as 1758 edicts were proclaimed to eradicate such habits (fig. 5).36

33 Ibid., fol. 230. Dated 7 April 1698.34 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,

31 [olim 1858]. Vol[ume] P[ri]mo Banni, 1552 ad 1700, fol. 237.35 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,

32 [olim 1859]. Vol. II Banni. 1713. ad. 1759 [but actually 1701–1759], fol. 15.36 Ibid., fol. 162. Dated 26 August 1758.


65

Even the drainpipes of the fountains had to be protected from carelesswaste disposal by means of yet another municipal decree.37 The many andrepeated decrees issued by the Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Mattonata eAcqua attest to the relentless effort of the Neapolitan municipal authori-ties to protect the Strada Medinaceli. In 1705 thirty-six missing trees werescheduled for replanting.38 Tying animals with ropes to the willow trees,tearing off their branches, striping the bark from them, or causing them todry up were seen as reprehensible actions subject to severe fines.39 TheAustrian viceroys were no less vigilant and zealous than their Spanish pre-decessors. An edict of 4 April 1732 signed by Emperor Karl VI expressedthe need to preserve the “long arrangement of willows.”40

Fig. 5: Filippo Falciatore: Tarantella at Mergellina (c. 1750) showing the Virgil-Sannazarofountain and (background) women washing on the beach. Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts.

37 Ibid., fol. 26. Dated 5 October 1727.38 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,

13 [olim 1840]. Conclusioni, VI, 1700–1709, fol. 93. Dated 24 November 1705.39 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,

32 [olim 1859]. Vol. II Banni. 1713. ad. 1759 [but actually 1701–1759], fol. 15.40 Ibid., fol. 79.


66

The reaction of the population of Chiaia to the new street could not beand, indeed, was not unanimous. Low-income inhabitants lived in over-crowded buildings owned by landlords who showed little concern for hygi-enic standards. In stark contrast to the front-row palaces enjoying the breath-taking view of the Riviera di Chiaia, humble dwellings made up most of theoverly dense fabric behind. Tired of the poor ventilation and limited accessto direct sunlight afforded by the compact, high-rise structures that hadbecome ubiquitous in seventeenth-century Naples, the wealthy owners ofthe Chiaia palaces fled their downtown residences seeking either permanentor seasonal relief. As a secondary residence, two successive viceroys, theMarquis de Astorga and the Marquis de los Vélez, took up the PalazzoRavaschieri di Satriano on the Rivera di Chiaia.41 The neighboring PalazzoIschitella stood proudly as the main urban residence of the Pinto y Mendozafamily.42 The present Palazzo Sirignano was built in 1535 for Fernando deAlarcón, 1st Marquis della Valle Siciliana. At the time when Medinaceliordered the embellishment of Chiaia, it was known as Palazzo Ulloa after itsthen owner, the Spaniard Félix de Lancina y Ulloa, one of the most powerfuland respected officials of the viceregal administration.43 It was later ac-quired by the Carafa di Belvedere, conspicuous representatives of the oldtitled nobility of military origin. Cosimo Fanzago’s Palazzo Barile di Caivanoboasted the most distinguished façade on the western end of the StradaMedinaceli. During the second half of the seventeenth century, guests of thehighest distinction frequented Chiaia’s beachfront palaces.44 As proof of theenduring restorative reputation of the area, the ailing 3rd Earl of Shaftesburyrented a house in Chiaia in 1711.45 His compatriot Thomas Salmon sang the

41 Ferrajoli: Palazzi e fontane. 1973, pp 185–186. Gino Doria: Le strade di Napoli: saggiodi toponomastica storica. Naples 1943, p. 475.

42 Prior to its acquisition by the Pinto family the palace was owned by the SpaniardMatías Casanate. Genziana Fabozzo: Il palazzo dei Principi di Ischitella alla Riviera diChiaia. In: Napoli-Spagna: architettura e città nel XVIII secolo (Studi sul SettecentoNapoletano 4). Ed. by Alfonso Gambardella. Naples 2003, pp. 381–388.

43 Félix de Lancina y Ulloa (1620–1703) resided in and owned the Palazzo Ulloa, nowa-days known as Palazzo Sirignano. Fausto Nicolini: La fine del dominio spagnuolosull’Italia meridionale nelle biografie di due generali napoletani. Naples 1954, p. 34.

44 Confuorto: Giornali di Napoli. 1930–1931, vol. 2, p. 310 (entry of 19 July 1698):“[…] il signor conte di Lemos, con sua moglie e tutta la sua famiglia […] ha preso casaa Chiaia, o, per dir meglio, alla strada nuova di Medina. È uno de’ grandi di Spagna edè venuto ad esercitarvi la carica di generale della squadra di queste galere. […] La seradel detto giorno fu per la nuova strada di Medinacoeli passeggio, con concorso indicibiledi nobiltà dell’uno e l’altro sesso, passeggiandovi Sua Eccellenza con la sua gondola permare e la signora viceregina per terra.”

45 Harold Samuel Stone: Vico’s Cultural History: The Production and Transmission ofIdeas in Naples 1685–1750 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 73). Leiden, NewYork, Cologne 1997, p. 175.


67

praises of the bellissimo corso Medinaceli in a book published in 1761.46

The so-called minuto popolo did not derive such enjoyment. The spate ofmunicipal decrees spanning from 1697 to at least 1758 set out to protect theneatly paved road, the nearly mile-long line of trees, and the dozen drinking-water fountains – significantly referred to as the nobilissimo passeggio –from any sort of encroachment by the lower classes.47 Washing in fountains,sewage disposal, unassuming carts, animals tied to tree trunks, all consti-tuted threats to the representative character the viceregal – beginning withthe Duke of Medinaceli himself – and later on the royal Bourbon adminis-tration attached to the street, which was intended to herald a new under-standing of the city that prized greenery as the epitome of civility.

As Enrico Guidoni points out, tree-lined courseways became a stapleof seventeenth-century urban design, particularly so in the context of dirigistepolicies.48 Colbert’s enjoinder – plants partout à continuer – captures themood perfectly.49 Guidoni describes the European vogue of viali alberati aspart and parcel of a will for order that turned its back on old neighborhoodsstill constrained within the medieval fabric. A distilled version of the pri-vate park, the promenade was expressive of a new civic autonomy, withwhich came a new bourgeois sociability no longer hedged in by stringenthierarchical barriers.50 In his 1702 visit to Naples, King Philip V of Spainmade it known that carriages promenading along the Strada Medinaceliwere not to stop when the royal coach passed by.51 In fact, Guidoni isperfectly justified in defining the Neapolitan promenade a “passeggioalberato alla francese.”52 Precisely this French character must have endearedthe project to the so-called ceto civile, the middle-class intelligentsia thatstrongly influenced viceregal policy in Naples in the second half of theseventeenth century as well as in the following century.53 While we shall

46 Franco Strazzullo: Il Real Passeggio di Chiaia. Naples 1985, p. 13.47 Gazzetta di Napoli, no. 27 (6 July 1700): “Ieri l’altro, domenica, vi fu un nobilissimo

passeggio nell’amenissima Riviera di Posilipo per mare e per terra, rallegrando quellerive le due squadre delle nostre Galee e di quelle di Tursis: e vi andò in ricchissimagondola S. E., e l’eccellentiss. sig.a Viceregina vi si condusse in carrozza colla consaputaSign.a sua nipote […].”

48 Enrico Guidoni, Angela Marino: Storia dell’urbanistica. Il Seicento. Rome, Bari 1979,pp. 522–528.

49 Lavedan: L’urbanisme. 1982, p. 150.50 Guidoni: Storia dell’urbanistica. 1979, pp. 523 and 525.51 Bulifon: Journal du voyage. 1703, p. 29: “[…] mais afin que les Seigneurs & les Dames

qui étoient venus à cette promenade y fussent sans contrainte, le Roy les dispensa defaire arrêter leur carrosse, quand ils recontreroient le sien.”

52 Guidoni: Storia dell’urbanistica. 1979, p. 439.53 Giuseppe Galasso: Alla periferia dell’impero. Il Regno di Napoli nel periodo spagnolo,

secoli XVI–XVII (Biblioteca di cultura storica 201). Turin 1994, pp. 280–298.


68

turn later to the complex brief of the 1696 garden-street, there can be littledoubt that it reflected, as Croce remarked, the preoccupations of the intel-lectuals that were to meet slightly later at the Accademia Palatina, foundedby Medinaceli on 20 March 1698.54 Also, it stemmed, at least in part, fromthe aspirations of the residents, many of whom were highly influential fig-ures at the viceregal court. The entry in Domenico Confuorto’s diary corre-sponding to 9 November 1696 is highly informative.55 Confuorto notedthat large stones were being used to pave the long stretch from Santa Mariadella Vittoria to Piedigrotta. In his view, the deputies of the Tribunale delleFortificazioni, Mattonata e Acqua had agreed to the Duke of Medinaceli’swishes; the city, however, was to share the financial burden with the vice-roy and the residents. Owners were to contribute sums that were fixedaccording to the size of their properties. Félix Lancina y Ulloa, President ofthe Sacro Regio Consiglio, volunteered 400 ducats and the Prince of Ischitellatwice that amount. The traditionalist Confuorto, not particularly well dis-posed towards the Duke of Medinaceli and the intellectuals he patronized,interpreted the ongoing work on the strada di Chiaia as a consequence ofthe viceroy’s fondness for providing solace and entertainment for the Nea-politans. Luis de la Cerda may indeed have been responsible for the im-pulse, both political and financial, that made the seaside promenade possi-ble: it was, after all, named after him and it followed almost immediatelyupon his arrival in Naples in 1696. It is no less true that as Generale delleGalere di Napoli he had witnessed the apotheosic ephemera in Mergellinadesigned by Philipp Schor for the Marquis del Carpio the previous decade,and was therefore well acquainted with the scenographic qualities of Chiaiaand Mergellina. Sure enough, in Chiaia Christoph Schor staged the majorcelebrations of Medinaceli’s viceroyalty, echoing those orchestrated by hiselder brother for Carpio.56 In all likelihood, the idea of developing a publicwalk of unparalleled length connecting the Santa Lucia promenade withPiedigrotta originated with the viceroy and a restricted milieu of confidantsand advisors. There is good reason to suspect the input of men like FrancescoCassiano de Silva, Philipp Schor (who did not leave Naples until the sum-mer of 1697), or, even more so, Christoph Schor.

54 Croce: La Villa di Chiaia. 1892, p. 10.55 Confuorto: Giornali di Napoli. 1930–1931, vol. 2, p. 249.56 Giulia Fusconi: Il “buen gusto romano” dei Viceré (1): La ricezione dell’effimero barocco

a Napoli negli anni del Marchese del Carpio (1683–1687) e del Conte di Santisteban(1688–1696) / Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: The “buen gusto romano” of theViceroys (2): Christoph Schor and Francesco Solimena, Standard-Bearers of ArcadianTaste in the Service of the Duke of Medinaceli. In: Le Dessin Napolitain. Ed. by Se-bastian Schütze and Francesco Solinas. Rome, Paris 2010, pp. 209–220 and 221–238.


69

Nature and History in the Neapolitan Arcadia

Perhaps the most important point to be made regarding the intellectualauthorship of the project is to underscore that in order for the garden-streetto be conceived, two closely related developments – urban and intellectual– had to coalesce. The influx of Cartesian rationalism in Naples had fordecades been balanced by the empiricist outlook of the investiganti.57 Yet inthe very last years of the seventeenth century the situation changed swiftly,as witnessed by the young Vico, in favor of the followers of Descartes.58

While both intellectual currents coexisted in Medinaceli’s AccademiaPalatina, the ascendancy of Cartesian thinkers, who were usually youngerand more belligerent, was unquestionably on the rise. Moreover, Cartesianphilosophy left its mark on Gregorio Caloprese, a respected member of thesame academy, as much as on his foremost disciple, Gianvincenzo Gravina.59

In view of the fact that Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni and the NeapolitanGravina co-founded the Accademia dell’Arcadia (Rome, 1690) to whichMedinaceli was admitted by acclamation in 1696 coinciding with his pro-motion to the Neapolitan viceroyalty,60 there can be little doubt that theexchanges between Rome and Naples in the last decade of the Seicento wereboth fluid and intense. Although conspicuous Neapolitan intellectuals andsocialites rushed to join the Accademia dell’Arcadia from 1690 onwards,Medinaceli and his entourage must be given full credit for exporting whatmay be described as “Arcadian” courtly culture to Naples. Perhaps the“rationalist poetics” of Caloprese and Gravina provide us with the bestinterpretive key to grasp the double significance of the Medinaceli promenade.Along with the “Arcadian” poetics of pristine natural beauty prevalentin the Accademia dell’Arcadia and the Accademia Palatina at the time,came a rationalistic agenda that found its echo in the Medinaceli walk.To be sure, the Tribunale oversaw the fair distribution of available waterto the residents and took on the maintenance of the street employing a

57 Maria Conforti: Scienza, erudizione e storia nell’Accademia di Medina Coeli. Spuntiprovvisori. In: Studi filosofici 8–9 (1985–1986), pp. 101–127.

58 Giambattista Vico: Autobiografia. Poesie. Scienza Nuova (I grandi libri Garzanti 287).Ed. by Pasquale Soccio. Milan 2006, p. 26. Fausto Nicolini: Uomini di spada, di chiesa,di toga, di studio ai tempi di Giambattista Vico. Naples 1942 [reprint ed. Milan /Naples, 1992 (Ristampe Anastatiche 4)].

59 Walter Binni: L’Arcadia e il Metastasio (Studi critici 6). Florence 1968, pp. IX–XLIII,esp. pp. XVI–XXI. Amedeo Quondam: Dal Barocco all’Arcadia. In: Storia di Napoli.Naples 1967–78, vol. 6(2) (1970), pp. 809–1094.

60 Anna Maria Giorgetti Vichi: Gli arcadi dal 1690 al 1800: Onomasticon. Rome 1977,p. 25. Medinaceli’s chosen name as “Arcadian shepherd” was Arconte Frisseo.


70

Fig. 6: Gaspar van Wittel: Chiaia Seen from Pizzofalcone (c. 1700) showing (bottom left) thebeginning of the new Strada Medinaceli. Milan, private collection.

gardener precisely for that purpose.61 Domenico Antonio Parrino repro-duced the 1697 Latin inscription chosen for the first of the twelve fountains(fig. 6).62 The onus was on celebrating the viceregal munificence responsi-ble for turning a once dust-ridden path into a neatly paved road graced withcheerful fountains. After such a radical – and rational – transformation,delight ensued: in the words of Parrino, the area was thus “rendered mostdelightful for promenading.”

61 ASMUN Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,13 [olim 1840 and 1841]. Conclusioni, VI and VII, 1700–1709 and 1710–1714, fols.66v– 67r (dated 16 May 1704), 93 (dated 24 November 1705), 94v (dated 4 September1713), 109v–110v (dated 16 February 1714), and 130v–131r (dated 13 August 1714).

62 Domenico Antonio Parrino: Nuova guida de’ forastieri per osservare, e godere le curiositàpiù vaghe, e più rare della Fedelissima Gran Napoli Città Antica, e Nobilissima. Naples1725, p. 114: “CAROLO II. REGNANTE. / Hic ubi puluureo squalebat olympia tractu /Nunc hilarant fontes, strataque saxaviam. / Quam ducis adjuta auspiciis, opibusquedicavit. / Medina Coeli nomine Parthenope / Excell. Dom. D. Ludovico de Cerda / CœliDuce Prorege. / Civitas Neapolis Anno / M.DC.XCVII.”

63 Cesare De Seta: Napoli tra Barocco e Neoclassico. Naples 2002, p. 115.

Last but not least, the promenade with its long succession of trees con-tributed to rendering uniform a beachfront that – prior to Medinaceli’sintervention – fell short of the distinguished character it aspired to. AsCesare De Seta pointed out, the major drawback of the Chiaia districtwas its being cut off from the city proper by the Pizzofalcone headland.63

But this severance was also a source of fascination, as if the shores of Chiaiacould spawn improved residential areas away from the hopelessly crampedold city. Chiaia’s greatest advantage was its central position within themajestic bay spreading out from Castel dell’Ovo to Cape Posillipo (fig. 7).


71

Fig.

7:

Fran

cesc

o C

assi

ano

de S

ilva:

Vie

w o

f N

aple

s (1

700)

ded

icat

ed t

o th

e du

ke o

f M

edin

acel

i an

d sh

owin

g (o

n th

e le

ft)

the

new

Str

ada

Med

inac

eli.

Dom

enic

o A

nton

io P

arri

no,

Nap

oli

citt

à no

bilis

sim

a, a

ntic

a, e

fed

elis

sim

a es

post

a à

gli

occh

i, &

alla

men

te d

e’ C

urio

si.

Nap

les

1700

, an

te p

. 1

[BN

M;

ER

/211

1].

72

Such a grandiose panorama was ideally suited, as Carpio had realized, forepoch-making festivities.64 To be sure, the work carried out underMedinaceli’s aegis either got rid of or alleviated the discomfort caused bydust in the summer and by mud in winter, reshaping Chiaia as a permanenttheater for viceregal grandeur – and everyone agreed that there could be nobetter place for military parades.65 It is therefore highly significant thatMedinaceli’s trusted personal architect, Christoph Schor, should have envi-sioned, as part of ephemeral structures erected on the Chiaia beach to com-memorate the name day of the Queen of Spain on 26 July 1698, an espalierstretching one full mile from one end to the other of the new street.66 Infact, Schor’s ephemeral trellis, measuring 5.27 m in height, was part of abold architectural display. Two huge triumphal arches were attached toeither end, while forty-two smaller arches (twelve of which protected thefountains of the promenade) and three palazzini enlivened the course of thegreenery fence. Leaving aside the details, Schor’s ephemeral scheme betraysan extraordinary degree of urban ambition. Echoing the permanent Palazzatadi Messina (1622–1625),67 Schor’s impermanent impalazzato for Chiaiaaspired to define a uniform urban crescent incorporating gateways andmonumental highlights. Its ephemeral character notwithstanding, the land-scape architecture Schor imagined for Chiaia tells us a great deal about therationalistic urban agenda underpinning the Strada Medinaceli.

The rationalist program of Medinaceli’s promenade needs to be stu-died further within its specific geographical and historical context.True, the street was a straightforward representative of the tree-lined

64 As stated by Pietro Giannone: Dell’ Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli. Naples 1723,vol. 4, lib. XL, p. 472, Carpio “negli spettacoli fu imitatore della magnificenza degliantichi Romani: non ne vide Napoli più magnifichi, e stupendi. Ne rimangono ancoraa noi le memorie, che nè la lunghezza del tempo, nè l’invidia, o l’emulazione le potràcancellare. I suoi successori, che mossi dal suo esempio vollero imitarlo, riuscirono alparagone secondi, e molto inferiori.”

65 Spanish and Austrian viceroys often staged military parades and naval displays in thearea. On 16 April 1746 Carlo III ordered the construction of a capacious square inChiaia to accommodate military drills and parades. ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità,Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata, 32 [olim 1859]. Vol: II Banni. 1713.ad. 1759 [but actually 1701–1759], fol. 141.

66 Distinta Relazione della Famosissima Festa Celebrata nella nuova Strada Medinacelialla Spiaggia di Chiaja, nel giorno di S. Anna A 26. Luglio 1698. Per il Nome, che neporta la Maestà della Regina delle Spagne Nostra Signora Marianna di Neoburgo Fattadisporre dall’Eccellentiss. Sig. Duca di Medinaceli, Vicerè, e Capitan Generale in questoRegno. Naples 1698 [Biblioteca della Società Napoletana di Storia Patria; Sala Bancodi Napoli, II.B.10(16)].

67 Amalia Ioli Gigante: Messina (Le città nella storia d’Italia). Rome, Bari 1980, pp. 58–59.


73

avenue-promenade, one of the earliest examples being Sully’s Mail del’Arsenal. Its cultural brief, however, was multilayered. Insofar as the in-scription on the first fountain spoke of hygienic objectives and the promo-tion of the welfare of the Neapolitan public, we are dealing with widelyshared aspirations. Yet Parrino mentioned a second inscription by GregorioMessere on a water level directly opposite Palazzo Ulloa.68 Written in bothLatin and Greek, Messere’s distich mistook Chiaia for the so-calledOlympianum, which in fact corresponded, as Croce remarked, to a differ-ent area of ancient Naples.69 The use of Greek by Messere, who joinedMedinaceli’s academy in 1698, was intended to summon up the ancientorigin of the city, which was – as many Neapolitan historians did not forgetto emphasize – believed to predate the founding of Rome. The Greek andLatin distiches introduced the antiquarian program of the promenade, de-vised to proclaim Medinaceli’s government as a threefold renovatio of Nea-politan splendor. Messere accordingly referred to the ancient Greek settle-ment of Paleopolis; later on, in one of the many encomiastic poems hedevoted to the viceroy, the erudite scholar declared, “Amidst the Tyrrhenianwaves, the Great LACERDA has renewed Athens.”70 The longtime Greekroots of the city were of great consequence to those who believed that thefirst settlers of Paleopolis were Athenians.71 We also owe to Parrino pre-cious information regarding the last fountain of the Strada Medinaceli (figs. 8and 9). It was executed in piperno stone, the dark hue of which must havehelped to set off the twin busts in stucco of Virgil and Sannazaro (figs. 10and 11).72 It was no accident that the two great poets were selected for themost elaborate and significant of all the fountains.73 Virgil evoked Augustansplendor, just as the name of Jacopo Sannazaro, the Actius Sincerus of theAccademia Pontaniana, brought to mind the glories of Renaissance Naplesunder the Aragonese dynasty – a most opportune connection since

68 Parrino: Nuova guida de’ forastieri (note 62 above), p. 115: “ Indi rimpetto al Palazzodel Reggente Ulloa appare questo Distico Greco in un livello d’acqua, espresso anche inlatino: / ΚΛΗΤΑΠΑ ΛΑΙΠΟΑΕΩΣ ΑΠΟ ΖΑΝΟΣ ΟΛΥΜΠΙΩ ΑΚΤΑ / ΝΥΝΑΠΟ ΤΕΥΚΕΡ∆Α

ΚΑΥΤΑ ΝΕΑΠΟΛΕΩΣ / Ab Jove Olympiaco qua dicta Palæpolis ora / Cerda Neapoleosnunc tibi dicta nitet.”

69 Croce: La Villa di Chiaia. 1982, p. 10.70 Poesías italianas y latinas. Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (hereafter BNM), ms. 9439,

fol. 174v. On this manuscript collection of poems, see Michele Rak: Le “Rime”dell’Accademia di Medinacoeli. In: Bollettino del Centro di Studi Vichiani 4 (1974),pp. 148–159.

71 Celano: Notitie del bello. 1692, vol. 1, giorn. I, p. 2.72 Parrino: Nuova guida de’ forastieri. 1725, p. 115.73 Partenio Rosso: Otii di D. Parthenio Rosso per le Delitie di Mergellina, e Chiaia. Napoli

1698, pp. 2 and 12.


74

Fig. 8: Anonymous: Frontal viewof the Twelfth Fountain ofthe Strada Medinaceli (1698)dedicated to Virgil and Sannazaro.Rosso: Otii (cf. note 73), insertedbetween pp. 10 and 11 [BNNVE;Biblioteca Brancacciana 01.D.27(9)].

Fig. 9: Anonymous: Rear view ofthe Twelfth Fountain of the StradaMedinaceli (1698) dedicated toVirgil and Sannazaro. Rosso: Otii(cf. note 73), inserted between pp. 1and 2 [BNNVE; BibliotecaBrancacciana 101.D.27(9)].


75

Fig. 10: Anonymous: Bustof Virgil (1698), detailof the twelfth fountain ofthe Strada Medinaceli.Rosso: Otii (cf. note 73),p. 11 [BNNVE; BibliotecaBrancacciana 101.D.27(9)].

Fig. 11: Anonymous: Bustof Jacopo Sannazaro (1698),detail of the twelfth fountainof the Strada Medinaceli.Rosso: Otii (cf. note 73), p. 1[BNNVE; BibliotecaBrancacciana 101.D.27(9)].


76

Medinaceli’s mother, Catalina Antonia de Aragón, was descended from ayounger brother of Alfonso V d’Aragona.74 The references to the Greekorigins of the city, to emperor Augustus, and to the Aragonese kings ofNaples constituted a carefully calculated historical stratigraphy. Praised asthe three most glorious epochs in the city’s past, they provided the modelfor Medinaceli’s enlightened rule. Moreover, Augustus’ and Alfonsod’Aragona’s protection of men of letters proved that prosperity went handin hand with cultural munificence. To conclude, Virgil and Sannazaro sharedunequivocal geographical ties with Chiaia and Mergellina. Not far fromthe terminal fountain, visitors could admire Sannazaro’s grave at SantaMaria del Parto, a church erected on the very spot where the poet’s cher-ished Villa Mergellina – a gift from his patron and friend Federico Id’Aragona – used to stand. What were believed at the time to be the re-mains of Virgil’s grave stood likewise in the vicinity, barely a short walkaway from Santa Maria de Piedigrotta.

As said, Medinaceli was hailed as arcade acclamato at the RomanAccademia dell’Arcadia at the same time as he was preparing to receive thebâton de commandement from his predecessor the Count of Santisteban.There was a significant overlap in membership between the Accademiadell’Arcadia in Rome and the Accademia Palatina in Naples, founded eightyears later.75 Medinaceli’s joining the former in 1696 and founding thelatter two years later contributed to outlining his progressive cultural agenda.Given that the planning of the Strada Medinaceli took place in 1696, thepresence of the two most relevant poets of the “Arcadian” tradition – theauthors of the Eclogues and the Arcadia – in the last fountain of the prom-enade was loaded with meaning. It could be easily read as Medinaceli’sendorsement of the literary purity that his fellow arcadi, led by Crescimbeniand Gravina, were hoping to promote in opposition to the outmoded Ba-roque flourish cultivated by the countless epigones of the Cavalier Marino.No less significant, a poem by Carmine Niccolò Caracciolo, 5th Prince ofSantobuono, read at a 1698 ragunanza of the Accademia dell’Arcadia in

74 Ibid., pp. 12 and 14. Giuseppe Valletta dedicated the following distich to Medinaceli:“Alfonsi exemplo reples sapientibus Aulam / Idque tui exemplo Rex Ludouicus agit.”BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 158r. We owe a poem celebrating the “immagine” of Augustus toTommaso d’Aquino, Prince of Castiglione. Ibid., fol. 98r. Both Valleta and Aquinowere relevant members of the Accademia Palatina, founded by Medinaceli.

75 Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: “In tuono lidio sì lamentevole.” Regia magnifi-cencia y poética arcádica en las exequias napolitanas por Catalina Antonia de Aragón,VIII Duquesa de Segorbe (1697). In: España y Nápoles. Coleccionismo y mecenazgovirreinales en el siglo XVII (España e Italia 3). Ed. by J. L. Colomer. Madrid 2009,pp. 481–512.


77

Rome, sang the praises of the “bel lido luminoso” of Chiaia.76 There canbe little doubt that the members of the nascent Accademia dell’Arcadia sawthe Medinaceli promenade as an “Arcadian” project, admirably embody-ing their desire for natural beauty and simplicity. The Abbot Carlo Doni,whose Arcadian name was Cessennio Issunteo, left us a terse description ofthe new street, which in his view had outranked Via Toledo as Naples’smain thoroughfare:

[Medinaceli] fece altresì lastricare di selci larghi tutta la famosa strada detta di Chiaia,che poi ha ritenuto il nome di strada di Medina Celi; e dalla parte del mare fece piantareuna gran quantità di alberi, intersecati da fontane di spazio in spazio, dove ora, lasciatal’antica strada di Toledo, si fa il solito corso, e passeggio, ed anche quello delle mascherein tempo di Carnivale.77

The members of the Arcadia invoked Virgil and Sannazaro as poetic forefa-thers; the presence of their busts was enough to redefine the Chiaia walk asa locus amoenus in the Classical tradition.78 Such an antiquarian programwas also akin to the historical pursuits of the Accademia Palatina, whichlaid stress on Classical exempla and Renaissance revivals.79 Lastly, it pre-pared visitors to make the transition from Naples to the Phlegraean Fieldswith their unique assortment of natural wonders and antique vestiges.

The antiquarian program cast Medinaceli in the role of great promoterof the arts, the letters, and the sciences. Along similar lines, many poems bymembers of the Accademia Palatina emphasize the heroism of Il gran Luigi.80

76 Biblioteca Angelica, Rome. Fondo dell’Accademia dell’Arcadia, ms. 8, fol. 87r:“Auuenimento nella sera dell’illuminazione della strada di Napoli, detta volgarmenteChiaia, per la festa iui celebrata nel di natalizio della Regina Cattolica. Sonetto. / Quandodi Piaggia, ancorche in fosca sera, / Del Sole, e de suoi rai feruidi a scorno, / Parue il bellido luminoso, e adorno / D’erbe, e di fior qual Prato in Primauera. / All’alta vistainusitata, e altera, / Sorser dal Mar Glauchi, e Sirene intorno; / E le Ninfe lasciando illor sogiorno, / V’accorser con Pastori in folta schiera. / Fra lor Filli anco uenne; ond’io,ch’intento / Ero a guardar di mile faci, e stelle / Gl’erranti giri, e’l diletteuol foco; / Vistovn nuouo splendor, ratto in quel loco / Corsi; e mirando le sue luci belle, / Tosto miparue ogn’altro lume spento.” The same poem in BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 19r. Later pub-lished in: Raccolta di rime di poeti napoletani non più ancora stampate. Naples 1701,p. 211, §IX.

77 Notizie istoriche degli arcadi morti. Ed. by Giovan Mario Crescimbeni. Rome 1720–1721, vol. 2 (1720), pp. 234–238, esp. p. 237.

78 See specifically the poems by Filippo Anastasio and Tommaso Donzelli in: BNM, ms.9439, fols. 125v, 129v, and 132v.

79 Lezioni dell’Accademia di Palazzo del duca di Medinaceli, Napoli 1698–1701(L’Umanesimo meridionale: Studi e Testi). Ed. by Michele Rak. Naples 2000–2005,vol. 5, pp. 139–172.

80 See, for example, the poem by Filippo Anastasio in BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 124r. See alsoRaccolta di rime. 1701, pp. 69 and 133. Rosso: Otii. 1698, p. 2.


78

81 ASMUN, Sezione Municipalità, Tribunale delle Fortificazioni, Acqua e Mattonata,31 [olim 1858]. Vol[ume] P[ri]mo Banni, 1552 ad 1700, fol. 219: “Carolo SecundoRegnante / Austriaco Hyspaniarum Monarcha / VJA MEDJNACELJ / Nouiter propèMaris lictora constructa / Sub genialj Auspicio / Excellentissimi Proregis Aloysij de laZerda / et Aragona, Ducis Medinacœli / recta indicat iustitiæ semitas, / ac Mergellinaeparat delicias, / cuius nomen, optatæ Pacis omen / tria simul conciliauit Elementa, /nempè C[o]eli, Aquarum, ac Terræ, / Quibus ne desit Ignis / Candens Vrbis NeapolitanæFides / Assiduo flagrat Amore.”

Parrino transcribed only the inscriptions for the first fountain and the wa-ter level. It would be odd for the twelfth and last fountain to lack a dedica-tion tablet, particularly so since it functioned as the promenade’s crowningfeature. In fact, one of Van Wittel’s Neapolitan vedute would leave no doubtsas to the presence in the fountain’s pavilion of a fairly large inscriptionfacing the street (fig. 12). An unpublished dedicatory text in Latin, datingfrom 1697, was in all likelihood penned for the Virgil-Sannazaro foun-tain.81 The inscription proclaimed that the new street, constructed underthe auspices of the Duke of Medinaceli, symbolized the straight path ofjustice. It also prepared strollers for the delights of Mergellina, and sincethe last fountain was also the one closest to Mergellina, it is plain that thefifteen lines were indeed intended for the Virgil-Sannazaro fountain. Theanonymous inscription publicized Mergellina as a peaceful abode wherewater and earth conjoined under the heavens. We are told that the fourthelement – fire – was represented by the unquenchable love of the citizens ofNaples for their viceroy. As the inscription makes plain, highlighting thenatural beauty of the coast was one of the main objectives of the Strada

Fig. 12: Gaspar van Wittel: View of the Western End of the Strada Medinaceli (c. 1700)showing the Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta in the background. Florence, GalleriaPalatina at Palazzo Pitti.


79

82 Lezioni dell’Accademia. 1698–1701, vol. 5, pp. 46–50, 115–122, 173–212, 219–221,249–273, and (by Maria Conforti) 303–348.

83 Ibid., vol. 5, pp. 308 and 310.84 Although conspicuously underrepresented, physiology and biology were present in the

sessions of the Accademia Palatina. See, for example, Lucantonio Porzio’s lesson“Dell’artificiosa respirazione” or Ottavio Santoro’s “Discorso intorno all’origine dellegioie e delle pietre che dentro gl’animali si generano.” Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 100–109 and121–135.

85 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 311.86 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 308.

Medinaceli. Undoubtedly, the awesome landscape and the antique ruins itcontained fascinated Medinaceli and his advisors, much as it continued toattract an ever-increasing number of scholars and travelers to the area westof Naples. The lezioni of the Accademia Palatina confirm the interest of itsmembers in the study of Graeco-Roman history and the analysis of naturalphenomena.82

Since the lezioni of the Accademia Palatina (1698–1701) followed afterthe completion of the Strada Medinaceli (1697) it would reasonable toobject that any links established between the two would have to be retro-spective at best. Yet it would be more accurate to state that the academiclessons and the planning of the new street were tied to the viceroy’s enthu-siastic support for the cultural and political agenda of the ceto civile.As Maria Conforti pointed out, the Palatine Academy was the first scientificgathering in the history of Naples to enjoy full institutional backing.83 Thisrepresented a momentous event in the affirmation of modern science insouthern Italy. In truth, the institutional character of the academy helpsexplain two of its most striking characteristics: the apparent lack of interestin medicine and biology (notwithstanding the active participation of thenoted physician Tommaso Donzelli) and the short shrift accorded to experi-mental science.84 Approximately one third of the lezioni were devoted toscientific topics, while the remaining two thirds dwelled primarily on his-torical subject matter.85 The interest in history was, in fact, pervasive. Sci-entific arguments were normally preceded by a historical exposé summariz-ing the different ways in which the phenomenon at hand had been explainedin the past. Conforti is therefore justified in claiming that the academy’sintellectual activities displayed the characteristic Neapolitan interest in his-torical epistemology, which was to culminate decades later with the work ofa then young member of the Accademia Palatina, Giovambattista Vico.86

Unlike the earlier Accademia degli Investiganti, whose firm stance in favorof experimentalism and atomism was understood to be part of the scientificlibertas philosophandi, the Accademia Palatina was more concerned withtwo aspects of natural science, namely its political utility for rulers and its


80

87 Maria Conforti interprets the relative retreat from the investiganti’s experimentalism inlight of the Palatine Academy’s parallel cultivation of scientific and historico-politicalthemes. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 314.

88 Ibid., vol. 5, pp. 306–307.89 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 135–165 and 216–248; vol. 3, pp. 7–120, 237–282 and 296–304; and

vol. 4, pp. 109–141, 164–174, 183–191, 198–205 and 239–248. These five acade-micians were rightly singled out by Maria Conforti as “filosofi naturali.” Ibid., vol. 5,p. 317.

90 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 143–165 and 228–248; vol. 3, pp. 136–151, 228–236 and 283–295;vol. 4, pp. 74–81; and vol. 5, p. 339.

91 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 7–120, 162–189 and 237–282; and vol. 4, pp. 164–174.

gnoseological implications. In both respects historical exempla, drawn mostlyfrom Classical sources, were emphasized. While admittedly the usefulnessof medicine was quite obvious, the accademici who gathered aroundMedinaceli prioritized hydrography and geography as the sciences mostclearly linked with the exercise of power. Likewise the relative lack of inter-est in experimental science may be better understood by referring to theacademy’s primary emphasis on history.87 Nonetheless some lessons, suchas those by Lucantonio Porzio on earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, dis-played a typically modern, post-Galilean analysis of natural phenomena interms of reproducible geometric and mathematical models.88 Alongside thoseof Porzio, the lessons by Agostino Ariani, Nicola Galizia, Antonio Monforte,and Tommaso Donzelli bear witness to the Academy’s genuine professionalinterest in natural science.89 The various lessons touched upon the proper-ties of fossils, drifting islands or the cedars of Lebanon; the formation ofpearls, glass, ice, fumaroles, or echo sounds; the manufacture of Tyrianpurple, the balsam of Jericho or Prince Rupert’s drops – miscellaneous top-ics that fitted in well with the Accademia Palatina’s historicizing approachto naturalia, to Nature’s teatro delle meraviglie.90 But hydraulics was with-out doubt the only scientific domain to give rise to a coherent corpus oflezioni. It was none other than the cycle of lessons on geography, geologyand hydrography delivered by Porzio, which were supplemented byAnastasio’s lessons on navigation and Donzelli’s lessons on the earth.91 Theconnection with the Strada Medinaceli may become clearer at this point. Itmay be said that the academy’s concerted interest in geography was mir-rored in the panoramic design of the street, which was clearly conceived toenhance Chiaia as a beautiful beach stretching between two promontories.As we saw, the first commemorative inscription in the Strada Medinacelirecorded the transformation of an impracticable stretch (muddy in winterand dusty in summer) into an amenable paved road: a tangible instantiationof the human ability to transform the landscape. The street was, moreover,embellished with fountains, bringing to mind the scienze delle acque dis-


81

92 See Maria Conforti’s insightful comments in ibid., vol. 5, pp. 314–330. On the preva-lence of the “architecture hydraulique” in the 17th and 18th centuries, see Antoine Picon:Le naturel et l’efficace. Art des jardins et culture technologique. In: Le Jardin, art et lieude mémoire. Ed. by Monique Mosser and Philippe Nyss. Besançon 1995, pp. 367–396,esp. pp. 367–370.

93 Lezioni dell’Accademia. 1698–1701, vol. 3, p. 13 and vol. 5, p. 316.94 BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 34v.95 “[…] l’amenità delle bellissime Fontane, che l’adornano, che in tal giorno si videro

sgorgare in varie guise acque limpidissime […].” Gazzetta di Napoli, no. 38 (10 Sep-tember 1697).

96 Lezioni dell’Accademia (note 79 above), vol. 3, p. 22 and vol. 5, pp. 317 and 320.97 A rare lezione to remain anonymous read: “non trovarsi delizie senza il sapere, non

trovarsi sapere senza delizie.” Ibid., vol. 4, p. 278.98 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 52. Cf. “Per essersi veduto arretrato il mare dal Lito di Napoli alquanto

piú che non soleua del medesimo” in BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 142v.

cussed at the Accademia Palatina by Porzio.92 Well aware of the fact that theviceroy presided over the academic sessions, the shrewd and prolific acad-emician did not pass up the opportunity to play on the flattering analogybetween the works of Nature and the effects of political rule.93 Poetic com-positions emphasized the crystal-like purity of the drinking water flowingfrom the dozen fountains standing only paces away from the sea.94 Simi-larly, the avvisi remarked upon the various ways in which the jets of waterworked.95 For all its simplicity, the idea of showcasing fountains by theseaside was a powerful means of highlighting the plentiful benefits to beenjoyed from a magnanimous ruler. Significantly, the physical properties ofsalt water were intently discussed at the Accademia Palatina.96

Echoing the scientific lessons delivered before the Duke of Medinaceli,which prioritized technological and historical questions, the StradaMedinaceli was publicized in terms of public utilitas and historical renovatio– to which may be added Arcadian amoenitas as a third key element. Thethree elements were understood to reinforce each other. Indeed, poetry wassingled out for its unique ability to shape human affections (affetti) for thecommon good; poetic delight (delizia) was seen as a powerful means tosteer young minds away from vice.97 It should not be a surprise then to findthat, among the professional scientists, Nicola Galizia and TommasoDonzelli produced a series of poems to be read at the academic gatherings.In addition, Donzelli wrote a poem on the changing Neapolitan coastlineechoing his own scientific theories as well as one of Porzio’s scientific les-sons, proving the close association of science and poetry at the Accademiadi Palazzo.98 Likewise, academicians such as Ottavio Santoro, FedericoPappacoda, Giuseppe Lucina, and Filippo Anastasio chose to deliver lec-tures on scientific matters in spite of lacking a professional background inscience. The overlap was not only deliberate but also clearly programmatic.


82

99 Ibid., fols. 174v, 175v, 181r and 186r–187r. Cf. note 68.100 The first stanza of Filippo Anastasio’s sonnet read: “Del Marone à la tomba, e del

Sincero / Garzoni, e Ninfe iuan con Lieti balli; / E con pompa di Cocchj, e di Caualli /Ogni più nobil Dama, o Caualiero.” Tommaso Donzelli’s opening stanza ran: “Là,doue Azio Sincero, e’l gran Marone / Han Le famose tombe, e ’n su’l terreno / Fann’ombrai Lauri: e scherza il mar Tirreno / Senz’onda insieme col sonator Tritone.” BNM, ms.9439, fols. 125v, 129v and 132v.

101 See note 76 and BNM, fols. 19r, 27v, 31v, 36v and 216r. Giorgetti Vichi: Gli arcadi.1977, pp. 21, 27 and 226.

102 Lezioni dell’Accademia. 1698–1701, vol. 4, pp. 192–197, esp. p. 195.103 Raccolta di rime. 1701, p. 69, §VIII and BNM, ms. 9439, fol. 124r.104 Lezioni dell’Accademia. 1698–1701, vol. 3, p. 55.105 On Arcadian rationalism, cf. note 59.

On closer inspection, the input of at least four academicians appearscritically important to the planning of the Strada Medinaceli. We have al-ready mentioned Gregorio Messere’s Greek distich for the street. To himwe owe the antiquarian references to Naples’s origin as a Greek settlement.Messere’s poems praising the Strada Medinaceli accordingly emphasizedits paradisiacal qualities in elegiac terms.99 Significantly, Filippo Anastasioand Tommaso Donzelli both penned poems extolling the new street in whichthe tombs of Virgil and Sannazaro were mentioned. Moreover, Anastasiocomposed a long Latin epitaph in honor of Virgil.100 It stands to reasonthat the idea of a last commemorative fountain devoted to the memory ofboth poets may well have originated with Anastasio and Donzelli. CarmineNiccolò Caracciolo, whose “bel lido” poem was read at the RomanAccademia dell’Arcadia (to which he, Messere, and Anastasio belonged),was fascinated by the impressive ephemeral architectural displays designedby Christoph Schor for the new street.101 We also know that Caracciolowas keenly aware of the practical importance of hydrography and ardentlydefended the usefulness of the sciences and the arts. He saw in them ademonstration of the rational powers of mankind.102 Lastly, the academi-cian and amateur scientist Filippo Anastasio left us an important sonnet inpraise of the fountains of the Medinaceli promenade.103 He was surelyaware of the fact, as was Lucantonio Porzio, that the water fountains ofNaples were primarily meant to embellish the city since most of the drink-ing water required by the population actually came from wells.104 In theminds of the promoters of the Strada Medinaceli, the fountains and thetrees were a source of delizia, on the attainment of which relied the project’smost legitimate claim to utilitas. The scientific lessons and the poems bymembers of the Accademia Palatina shared in the same rationalist-Arcadianspirit.105 As the Seicento reached its end, the “Arcadian” Naples thatMedinaceli ruled fostered a new understanding of gardening, one in whichit may be possible to anticipate what Rosario Assunto defined in reference


83

106 Rosario Assunto: Il Parterre e i ghiacciai. Tre saggi di estetica sul paesaggio del Settecento.Palermo 1984 (Logos 3), pp. 53–54. Assunto had in mind eighteenth-century land-scape gardening in Lombardy.

107 Pompeo Sarnelli: Guida de’ forestieri, curiosi di vedere, e d’intendere le cose più notabilidi Pozzoli, Baja, Miseno, Cuma, ed altri luoghi convicini. Naples 1697.

108 Walter Vitzthum and Giuliano Briganti: Drawings by Gaspar Van Wittel (1652/53–1736) from Neapolitan Collections. Ottawa 1977, p. 75 (pl. 26), cat. no. 21v.

to the Enlightenment as “the beautiful in the useful, i. e. the beautiful un-derstood as the beauty of what is useful insofar as it is useful.”106

The complex program underlying the Strada Medinaceli would fail tomake sense in the absence of a keen interest in the precise identification ofthe historical layers of Naples and its environs side by side with a poeticappreciation of the surrounding landscape. Moreover, it is significant thatthe Strada Medinaceli brought different historical strata (Greece, Rome,and the Renaissance) to bear as part of a legitimizing strategy. It is noless significant that the archaeological study of the past could be carriedout not only within the confined city center but also in the unsurpassedlandscape encompassing Cuma, Capua or Baia.107 Walter Vitzthum arguedthat a beautiful sketch by Gaspar van Wittel, which he titled Town andCliffs Seen from the Sea (fig. 13), “… was no doubt inspired by the artist’sNeapolitan sojourn,” which took place between 1699 and 1702.108

Fig. 13: Gaspar van Wittel: Town and Cliffs Seen from the Sea (c. 1700) perhaps to beinterpreted as a conjectural reconstruction of the ancient settlement of Paleopolis (?). Naples,Museo Nazionale di San Martino.


84

109 Giuliano Briganti: Gaspar van Wittel. Ed. by Laura Laureati and Ludovica Trezzani.Milano 1996, p. 115.

110 Aurora Scotti Tosini: Filippo Juvarra y las Cortes europeas del siglo XVIII. In: FilippoJuvarra 1678–1736. De Mesina al Palacio Real de Madrid. Ed. by Antonio BonetCorrea, Beatriz Blasco Esquivias, Vera Comoli Mandracci, and Aurora Scotti Tosini.Madrid 1994, pp. 140–163, esp. pp. 155–156.

111 Relazione della Famosissima Festa (note 29 above): “[…] nella lunga nuova Strada diMedina Celi, presso la deliziosa Riviera di Chiaja un Teatro d’ossequiosa Gloria tributaria[…] che nelle Strade dell’antica Roma, ne’ suoi Cesari Trionfanti pure ammirarono; nèseppero fingere i capricciosi ritrovati de’ Romani […].” Rosso: Otii. 1698, p. 3: “Quindifissando il Sguardo / Ver la SPIAGGIA gradita, / Con dolcezza infinita / Vidde MoleSuperba / D’incatenati Marmi, / Che rinouando à proua / Degl’Antichi Inperanti /I Prodigj fastosi, / Qual nuouo Anfiteatro.”

112 Andreina Griseri describes insightfully the Naples Juvarra encountered in 1706 as “unlaboratorio d’avanguardia.” Filippo Juvarra: Libro di più pensieri d’architettura diFilippo Juvarra. Ed. by Andreina Griseri. Milan 1998, pp. 33–36.

The Dutch vedutista was summoned to Naples by Medinaceli, who com-missioned from him a series of views, including one showing the StradaMedinaceli as seen from Pizzofalcone (fig. 6).109 Van Wittel’s chalk, ink,and wash pensiero perhaps captured the cultural ambiance that fosteredthe promenade better than the detailed oil on canvas veduta. The sketch,kept at the Museo di San Martino, shows men in contemporary attire row-ing towards an antique harbor city. An impressive landscape with intactClassical buildings somehow coexisted with men of circa 1700, as if VanWittel intended to illustrate the archaeologist’s uchronic task. A series ofmagnificent sketches by Filippo Juvarra recreate the various historical strata– ancient, Roman, contemporary, projected – of the city of Messina. Juvarradrew it in 1714 with a view to designing a royal palace for Vittorio AmedeoII of Savoy, and he clearly understood the various historical strata as sig-nificant signposts within a historical continuum. As shown by Aurora ScottiTosini, Juvarra’s attention to the continuity of history or, more precisely,to high points within it, fell within an overall legitimizing strategy designedto bolster Vittorio Amedeo as the new king of Sicily.110 With only the scanti-est of means, the Strada Medinaceli sought to propagandize Luis de laCerda’s beneficent rule. To fulfill their task, the intellectuals and artiststhat surrounded the viceroy selected with utmost care a few references tothe city’s past in order to wrap Medinaceli’s plans to modernize Naples inthe full cloak of historical legitimacy.111 Van Wittel and Juvarra, both wellacquainted with the more forward-thinking Neapolitans,112 seem to be at-tempting substantially the same thing. In spite of inescapable contradic-tions, the archaeological cult of history prevalent in the Accademia Palatina,the combination of rationalism and sensism that characterized the poeticsof Caloprese and Gravina and the neo-Cartesian dirigisme espoused by


85

many representatives of the ceto civile113 found their place in the NuovaStrada Medinaceli. The pristine nature relished by Arcadian poets and thestraightforward efficiency of the modern street were assumed to coexistharmoniously. Anticipating later developments, such a curious blend ofserene delight and instrumental reason was, moreover, supposed to grounditself archaeologically. Thus rephrased, we may of course grasp the formi-dable task underwritten by the apparently uncomplicated garden-street. Itcertainly stands as a reminder of the extraordinary vitality of the Neapoli-tan pre-Enlightenment.

Literature

Giovanni Acampora: Raccolta di rime di poeti napoletani non più ancora stampate. Naples1701.

Biagio Aldimari: Historia genealogica della famiglia Carafa. Naples 1691.Giancarlo Alisio: Il “passeggio di Chiaia”: dagli interventi vicereali ai futuri progetti. In: Il

passeggio di Chiaia: Immagini per la storia della Villa Comunale. Naples 1993, pp. 11–12.

Giancarlo Alisio: Il lungomare (Napoli: uomini e luoghi delle trasformazioni urbane 3).Naples 1989.

Giancarlo Alisio: Napoli nel Seicento. Le vedute di Francesco Cassiano de Silva. Naples 1984.[Anonymous]: Racconto di varie notizie accadute nella città di Napoli dall’anno 1700 al

1732 [I]. In: Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 31 (1906), no. 3, pp. 430–508.

[Anonymous]: Relazione della Famosissima Festa nel giorno della Gloriosa S. Anna à 26. diLuglio 1699. Per solennizare il Nome, che ne porta la Maestà della Regina NostraSignora M. Anna di Neoburgo fatta celebrare nella Riviera di Chiaja, e nello Scoglio diMergellina dall’Eccellentissimo Signore D. Luigi dela Cerda, e d’Aragona Duca di MedinaCeli, d’Alcalà, &c Vicerè, e Capitan Generale in questo Regno. Naples 1699.

Rosario Assunto: Il Parterre e i ghiacciai. Tre saggi di estetica sul paesaggio del Settecento.Palermo 1984 (Logos 3), pp. 53–54.

Alessandro Baratta: Fidelissimae urbis Neapolitanae cum omnibus viis accurata et novadelineatio. Ed. by Cesare De Seta and Gaetana Cantone. Naples 1986.

Walter Binni: L’Arcadia e il Metastasio (Studi critici 6). Florence 1968.Giuliano Briganti: Gaspar van Wittel. Ed. by Laura Laureati and Ludovica Trezzani. Milano

1996.Antoine Bulifon: Journal du Voyage d’Italie de l’Invincible, & glorieux Monarque Philippe V.

Roy d’Espagne, et de Naples. Naples 1704.Antonio Bulifon: Giornale del Viaggio d’Italia dell’Invittissimo, e glorioso Monarca Filippo V.

Re delle Spagne, e di Napoli. Naples 1703.

113 Salvo Mastellone: Francesco D’Andrea, politico e giurista (1648–1698). L’ascesa delceto civile. Florence 1969, pp. 114–115 and 169.


86

Giovanni Carafa, Duca di Noja: Mappa Topografica della Città di Napoli e de’ suoi contorni.Naples 1775.

Carlo Celano: Notitie del bello, dell’antico, e del curioso della Città di Napoli. Naples 1692.Maria Conforti: Scienza, erudizione e storia nell’Accademia di Medina Coeli. Spunti

provvisori. In: Studi filosofici 8–9 (1985–1986), pp. 101–127.Domenico Confuorto: Giornali di Napoli dal MDCLXXIX al MDCIC (Cronache e documenti

per la Storia dell’Italia Meridionale dei Secoli XVI e XVII). Ed. by Nicola Nicolini.Naples 1930–31.

Benedetto Croce: La Villa di Chiaia (I), (II), and (III). In: Napoli Nobilissima: Rivista diTopografia ed Arte Napoletana, 1 (1892), nos. 1–2, 3, and 4, pp. 3–11, 35–39, and51–53.

Cesare De Seta: Napoli tra Barocco e Neoclassico. Naples 2002.Cesare De Seta: Napoli (La città nella storia d’Italia). Bari, Rome 1981.Gino Doria: Le strade di Napoli: saggio di toponomastica storica. Naples 1943.Genziana Fabozzo: Il palazzo dei Principi di Ischitella alla Riviera di Chiaia. In: Napoli-

Spagna: architettura e città nel XVIII secolo (Studi sul Settecento Napoletano 4). Ed.by Alfonso Gambardella. Naples 2003, pp. 381–388.

Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: The “buen gusto romano” of the Viceroys (2): ChristophSchor and Francesco Solimena, Standard-Bearers of Arcadian Taste in the Service of theDuke of Medinaceli. In: Le Dessin Napolitain. Ed. by Sebastian Schütze and FrancescoSolinas. Rome, Paris 2010, pp. 221-238.

Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: “In tuono lidio sì lamentevole.” Regia magnificencia ypoética arcádica en las exequias napolitanas por Catalina Antonia de Aragón, VIIIDuquesa de Segorbe (1697). In: España y Nápoles. Coleccionismo y mecenazgovirreinales en el siglo XVII (España e Italia 3). Ed. by J. L. Colomer. Madrid 2009,pp. 481–512.

Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: “Sin atender a la distancia de payses”… El fasto nupcialde los príncipes de Feroleto entre Mirandola y Nápoles. In: Reales Sitios, 43 (2006),no. 167, pp. 28–49.

Jorge Fernández-Santos Ortiz-Iribas: Las fuentes romanas de Don Gaspar de Haro: del aplausoefímero a la eterna fama. In: Montorio: Cuadernos de trabajo de la Real Academia deEspaña en Roma, 2 (2003–2004), pp. 60–80.

Ferdinando Ferrajoli: Palazzi e fontane nelle piazze di Napoli (Collana di cultura napoletana22). Naples 1973.

Innocenzo Fuidoro [Vincenzo D’Onofrio]: Giornali di Napoli dal MDCLX al MDCLXXX(Cronache e documenti per la Storia dell’Italia meridionale dei secoli XVI e XVII 5–8).Edited by Franco Schiltzer, Antonio Padula, and Vittoria Omodeo. Naples 1934–1943,vol. 2 (1938), pp. 94, 151, 217, and 220.

Giulia Fusconi: Il “buen gusto romano” dei Viceré (1): La ricezione dell’effimero barocco aNapoli negli anni del Marchese del Carpio (1683–1687) e del Conte di Santisteban(1688–1696). In: Le Dessin Napolitain. Ed. by Francesco Solinas and Sebastian Schütze.Rome, Paris 2010, pp. 209–220.

Giuseppe Galasso: Aspetti della megalopoli napoletana nei primi secoli dell’età moderna. In:Mégalopoles méditerranéennes. Géographie urbaine rétrospective (Collection de l’Écolefrançaise de Rome 261). Ed. by Claude Nicolet, Robert Ilbert, and Jean-Charles Depaule.Paris, Rome 2000, pp. 565–575.

Giuseppe Galasso: Alla periferia dell’impero. Il Regno di Napoli nel periodo spagnolo, secoliXVI–XVII (Biblioteca di cultura storica 201). Turin 1994, pp. 280–298.

Pietro Giannone: Dell’ Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli. Naples 1723.Anna Maria Giorgetti Vichi: Gli arcadi dal 1690 al 1800: Onomasticon. Rome 1977.


87

Enrico Guidoni, Angela Marino: Storia dell’urbanistica. Il Seicento. Rome, Bari 1979.Amalia Ioli Gigante: Messina (Le città nella storia d’Italia). Rome, Bari 1980, pp. 58–59.Filippo Juvarra: Libro di più pensieri d’architettura di Filippo Juvarra. Ed. by Andreina

Griseri. Milan 1998.Pierre Lavedan, Jeanne Hugueney, and Philippe Henrat: L’urbanisme à l’époque moderne.

XVIe–XVIIIe siècles (Bibliothèque de la Société Française d’Archéologie). Paris, Ge-neva 1982.

Angelo Martini: Manuale di metrologia ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente eanticamente presso tutti i popoli. Turin 1883.

Salvo Mastellone: Francesco D’Andrea, politico e giurista (1648–1698). L’ascesa del cetocivile. Florence 1969.

Fausto Nicolini: La fine del dominio spagnuolo sull’Italia meridionale nelle biografie di duegenerali napoletani. Naples 1954.

Fausto Nicolini: Uomini di spada, di chiesa, di toga, di studio ai tempi di Giambattista Vico.Naples 1942.

Domenico Antonio Parrino: Nuova guida de’ forastieri per osservare, e godere le curiositàpiù vaghe, e più rare della Fedelissima Gran Napoli Città Antica, e Nobilissima. Naples1725.

Antoine Picon: Le naturel et l’efficace. Art des jardins et culture technologique. In: Le Jardin,art et lieu de mémoire. Ed. by Monique Mosser and Philippe Nyss. Besançon 1995,pp. 367–396.

Amedeo Quondam: Dal Barocco all’Arcadia. In: Storia di Napoli. Naples 1967–78, vol. 6(2)

(1970), pp. 809–1094.Daniel Rabreau: La passeggiata urbana in Francia nel Seicento e nel Settecento: fra piani-

ficazione e immaginario. In: L’architettura dei giardini d’Occidente dal Rinascimento alNovecento. Ed. by Monique Mosser and Georges Teyssot. Milan 1990, pp. 301–312.

Michele Rak: Le “Rime” dell’Accademia di Medinacoeli. In: Bollettino del Centro di StudiVichiani 4 (1974), pp. 148–159.

Partenio Rosso: Otii di D. Parthenio Rosso per le Delitie di Mergellina, e Chiaia. Napoli 1698.Giovanni Sances de Luna: Galeria erudita, morale, e politica esposta alla publica veduta del

Mondo. Naples 1697.Pompeo Sarnelli: Guida de’ forestieri, curiosi di vedere, e d’intendere le cose più notabili di

Pozzoli, Baja, Miseno, Cuma, ed altri luoghi convicini. Naples 1697.Vincenzo Scamozzi: L’Idea della architettura universale. Venice 1615.Mercedes Simal López: Don Juan Alfonso Pimentel, VIII conde-duque de Benavente, y el

coleccionismo de antigüedades: inquietudes de un virrey de Nápoles (1603–1610). In:Reales Sitios, 42 (2005), no. 164, pp. 30–49.

Elisabeth Sladek: Pedro of Aragon’s Plan for a “Private Port” (Darsena) in Naples. Recon-struction and Genesis of a Classical Building Type. In: Parthenope’s Splendor: Art ofthe Golden Age of Naples (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State Univer-sity 7). Ed. by Jeanne Chenault and Scott Munshower. University Park (Pennsylvania)1993, pp. 362–395.

Harold Samuel Stone: Vico’s Cultural History: The Production and Transmission of Ideas inNaples 1685–1750 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 73). Leiden, New York, Co-logne 1997.

Franco Strazzullo: Il Real Passeggio di Chiaia. Naples 1985.Aurora Scotti Tosini: Filippo Juvarra y las Cortes europeas del siglo XVIII. In: Filippo Juvarra

1678–1736. De Mesina al Palacio Real de Madrid. Ed. by Antonio Bonet Correa,Beatriz Blasco Esquivias, Vera Comoli Mandracci, and Aurora Scotti Tosini. Madrid1994, pp. 140–163.


88 JORGE FERNÁNDEZ-SANTOS ORTIZ-IRIBAS

Various Authors: Lezioni dell’Accademia di Palazzo del duca di Medinaceli, Napoli 1698–1701 (L’Umanesimo meridionale: Studi e Testi). Ed. by Michele Rak. Naples 2000–2005.

Various Authors: Notizie istoriche degli arcadi morti. Ed. by Giovan Mario Crescimbeni.Rome 1720–1721.

Giambattista Vico: Autobiografia. Poesie. Scienza Nuova (I grandi libri Garzanti 287). Ed.by Pasquale Soccio. Milan 2006.

Walter Vitzthum and Giuliano Briganti: Drawings by Gaspar Van Wittel (1652/53–1736)from Neapolitan Collections. Ottawa 1977.

il bel lido luminoso: the planning of strada medinaceli in naples (1697)

Documents