Coffee-Pots, Children's Workshops, and Modern Art in Naples

The Sunday Skip:  I had the wonderful honor of meeting Professor Riccardo Dalisi at his art studio last week.  Accessible, jovial, and willing to talk openly about his life and his works, Professor Dalisi has had his art displayed in exhibits throughout Europe and America.  His claim to fame is having re-created a slick new design of the Neapolitan Flip-Over Coffee Pot commissioned by the company Alessi, for which he won the 1981 Golden Compass, the premier industrial design award in Italy.


His ideas for the new rendition of the caffettiera napoletana arose from his workshops where he took the tin pot and, in the tradition of the pulcinella and Neapolitan theater movement opera buffa, he began to sodder faces, arms, and legs onto them:

Professor Dalisi grew up during the war years when often he had nothing more than potato peels to eat.  But his father enjoyed the arts and encouraged him to study.  Professor Dalisi received a degree in architecture and later became a tenured professor at the University of Naples Department of Architecture, his alma mater.  While teaching, he began to establish workshops for children, in particular children who lived in impoverished areas of Naples.  There, he encouraged them to create spontaneously using any materials at their disposal (known as tecnica povera).  Soon, many of the children's works began to appear in exhibitions.  


Influenced by the Spanish architect Gaudi, about whom he wrote and published a book, Professor Dalisi always adopts and absorbs international as well as Italian history and culture to develop his works.  He has created masks from various metal materials, which are a play on the theater masks of Roman times.  He also sculpts larger works, such as this Don Quixote:

His studio in the Vomero district brims with a cornucopia of artistic works.  Visitors are welcome at Professor Dalisi's workshop along Rua Catalana in the heart of downtown Naples.  His works can also be seen at inside the catacombs at The Church of Santa Maria della Sanita.

Here are some pictures of the workshop on Rua Catalana:

Grazie mille Professor Dalisi e tutti suoi cari amici-artisti!

Book Recommendations:  La Caffettiera E Pulcinella by Riccardo Dalisi, Architettura D'Animazione by Riccardo Dalisi.  (Many more books published by Professor Dalisi can be found at his workshop.)

The Italian Prison

Nook of Naples:  Whenever I'm wandering around Naples close to the sea, I often ask my friends, "What is that island over there?"
"That one?" they point.
"No."
"Then that one?"
"No."

Three islands sit off the coast of Naples -- Capri, Ischia, and Procida.  On a clear day, they're visible from the Bay of Naples as well as from Mt. Vesuvius.

Capri is where you can visit the blue lagoon, the Villa of Tiberius, or enjoy the cafes and restaurants that make you feel you're inside the movie with Sophia Loren and Clark Gable, It Started In Naples.

Procida, while smaller with not much to see, has a stunning panorama of the sea captured in the photo that introduces my blog (above).  The island is also where the movie Cinema Paradiso was filmed.

Ischia is the spa island where you can receive all kinds of massages, herbal treatments, or take a bus ride to the lavish Gardens of Poseidon.  There, you can linger on their private beach or bathe all day in more than twelve different swimming pools.  (Though children are permitted in three pools only, all of which are cold water.)

But a fourth island struts directly off the Bay of Naples -- Nisida.  Harder to find by car (you get there by passing an industrial area near the Children's Science Center), Nisida has a causeway monitored by a security guard who always lets people pass.  Walking toward the island, Italian yachts line the harbor.  You can also see the Italian prison at the very top of the island.

While visitors aren't allowed at the prison, if you have an American military pass, you may go down the causeway, hang a left, and flash your ID in order to get past the gate.  Here, a tiny military base has yachts that Americans can rent for day-long sailing.  There is also an American yachting club that holds competitions during certain times of year.

Florence con Amore

The Sunday Skip:  Florence can be overwhelming for any visitor and seeing the sights through the conventional Lonely Planet guidebooks might turn out to be a chore.  But Florence can also be a meditative experience that absorbs one fully and completely into the arts.  To prove it, I'd like to introduce Jane Fortune, an art connoisseur and part-time resident of Florence who, I'm very fortunate to say, happens to also be the mother of a my long-time friend and pen-pal, Jennifer Medveckis-Marzo.  Jane gave me permission to write a bit about her on my blog, for which I am both excited and honored.

Cultural editor for The Florentine, Jane Fortune has served as a member on the board of trustees at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia) and is on the national advisory board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington D.C.) as well as on the board of governors at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  She has also published two books that have become indispensable to me while traveling through Florence:

Florence con Amore:  77 Ways to Love the City -- This book includes a chapter on 'places that soothe the soul' as well as restaurant recommendations and must-reads.  Florence con Amore begins by describing the tight relation between art and religion in the city, explaining that there are two essential artistic themes that arise when touring museums and churches:  the Annunciation and the Last Supper.  After giving examples, the tour of Florence continues with descriptions of the schools of art, theaters, and the guilds of Florence.  There are many golden nuggets to explore in this book and it’s also replete with stunning pictures.

Invisible Women:  Forgotten Artists of Florence --  While Florentines pride themselves on the sheer volume of extant art, storage rooms of museums burgeon with artwork that can't be displayed in galleries for lack of space.  The problem seems to be more acute for women artists with only 138 paintings by 124 women on public view in the city.  Meanwhile, more than 1,500 works by women currently languish in various Florentine deposits, often relegated to unprotected corners of storerooms where rats scurry and rain drips on canvases caked with pigeon droppings.  

Through meticulous research into these depositories, Invisible Women gives a glimpse into the lives and artwork of more than twenty women painters, from the sixteenth century Suor Plautilla Nelli to the twentieth century Adriana Pincherle.  (Artemisia Gentileschi features as well.)  The chapter called the Women Artists' Trail includes a map of where you can find the paintings of these women in the city (my favorite description being the private walkway of the Vasari Corridor with 27 exhibited works by 21 women).  The book also has a twenty-two page Inventory of Women that includes as much biographical material as the author could find.

Jane Fortune is currently writing a new book on the women sculptors of Florence, so stay tune!

I'd like to finish this post with picture-impressions of my own visit to Florence:

You can find Jane Fortune's works at most bookstores throughout Florence.  To order on-line, you can go to The Florentine website or here.

Sugar Cream and Caffe Brasiliano

The Espresso Break:  In many cafe-bars throughout Naples, baristas ask if you'd like to have a spot of zucchero-crema (sugar-cream) in your cup.  If you say yes, they daub a teaspoon of the fluffy concoction in a demitasse (tazzino), then put the cup under the espresso maker.

At the famous Moccia Caffe they gave me the recipe:

1 1/2 kilograms of granulated sugar
20 shots of espresso
Blend together in a mixer until you have a frothy tan cream.

Sugar-cream adds a sweet-syrupy taste to the espresso.  It also means that you have to stir a long time before taking that ever-satisfying coffee gulp.

Moccia is located along a narrow street several blocks from the Bay of Naples and one block away from the modern art museum, PAN.  The name of the cafe itself hearkens back to coffee's international history.  Coffee was first used for its medicinal value in Ethiopia and soon spread to Yemen where Sufi mystics used the brew.  For many centuries the port of Mocha in Yemen exported coffee throughout the Middle East until merchants brought it to Venice in the early 1600's.

Today, coffee beans are cultivated worldwide, including Southeast Asia, Hawaii, Africa, and South America -- most notably Brazil.

In Naples, a reigning favorite coffee beverage is the Caffe Brasiliano.  A small glass cup is filled first with an espresso shot.  A half a teaspoon of cacao is sprinkled on the shot as well as zucchero-crema.  Next milk foam, made with whole milk and foamed only until silky, is poured to the rim of the cup.  At last, some cacao is sprinkled on the foam.

Moccia
Filli Romano
dal 1920
Via San Pasquale a Chiaia, 21/22
80121 Napoli

The Gambling Mezzo Soprano -- Isabella Colbran

The Odious Women Tour:  Isabella Colbran (1785-1845) radiated majesty on stage.  Off-stage, it was said, she had as much dignity as a milliner's assistant.  Born in Madrid, she studied under Girolamo Crescenti in Paris and by the age of twenty was known throughout Europe for her velvety mezzo-soprano voice.  She took take her talent to Naples, a city known as the capital of European music during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The opulent Bourbon dynasty had taken over rule of Naples (1734-1861), bringing not only political stability and civic ideals of the Enlightenment, but turning a dilapidated Naples, after two centuries of Spanish colonial rule, into a modernized city.  The Bourbon dynasty commissioned opulent building projects, including the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Royal Residence of Capodimonte, and the Albergo dei Poveri (the hostel for the poor).  It was at this time that Pompeii and Herculaneum were discovered and the architect Luigi Vanvitelli became a Neapolitan household name.  What's more, the Bourbons built the Teatro San Carlo, which quickly became the place every  opera singer wanted to be, including the famous castrata Farinelli.

When Isabella Colbran arrived in Naples, she first became the lover of the theater's coarse impresario, Domenico Barbaja.  A coffee-shop owner from Milan with a knack for business, Barbaja ran the theater alongside a slew of gaming parlors in northern Italy -- the likely cause of Colbran's lifelong gambling addiction.

Barbaja commissioned Gioachino Rossini (Barber of Seville) to work in Naples on contract for seven years.  Rossini quickly fell in love with Colbran, composing at least ten operas with her in mind.  The three-some worked together until 1822 when Rossini and Colbran left for Bologna, where they married.  (Barbaja wasn't invited.)

Materially well off,  Isabella Colbran exacted high fees and also inherited a large estate.  When Colbran's father died, Rossini was so moved by his wife's grief that he commissioned a mausoleum near Bologna depicting a daughter at the foot of the tomb weeping for her father.  Colbran is buried there today alongside Rossini's parents.

But in general, Colbran's marriage was a disaster.  Rossini was 30 and his career was about to take off, while Colbran was 37, her waning voice sounding the death knell of her career.  While in 1824 she still played the star role for Rossini's Semiramide in London, asking the high sum of 1,500 pounds, the critics began to pan her performances with such zeal that three years later, at the age of 42, her career was over.  While Rossini continued to travel and work throughout Europe, taking on a mistress in Paris, Colbran generally remained at her deceased father's estate in Castenaso near Bologna.  Her health continued to deteriorate, in large part due to the gonorrhea she contracted from her husband.  She also began to sell off whatever she could of her estate to support an ever more acute gambling addiction.  She died in 1845, at the age of 60, purportedly murmuring Rossini's name.

Today, the Teatro San Carlo, located in the heart of downtown, is the highlight of any Naples tour.  Tickets and information can be found here.

Theater Boxes in Teatro San Carlo (Still today they have mirrors along the wall meant to enable patrons to see both the show in front of them AND the King behind them inside the Royal Box.)

Ceiling Fresco

The Royal Box

Bust of Domenica Barbaja in one of the Intermission Rooms

An Intermission Hallway

The Sunday Jump -- Paris

The Duck Crusher:  There's nothing like French food and while Paris offers all sorts of culinary delights, the absolute finest meal I had during my visit was rare duck with blood sauce.


The famous La Tour d’Argent or The Silver Tower was established in 1582.  The restaurant boasts that Henri IV was a patron, his favorite dish the Heron Pate.  Richelieu also treated his guests here, the restaurant serving a whole ox prepared in 30 different ways and offering something new for dessert:  coffee. 


Located along the Seine River, today the opulent restaurant has waiters dressed in tuxedoes and doormen who escort you through finely decorated rooms to a small elevator that brings you to the top floor.  The dining hall, filled with duck memorabilia (even the wall paper in the bathroom has a duck motif), offers an excellent view of the Notre Dame as well as a several course meal.


Their signature dish is Caneton Tour d'Argent, a duck cooked rare, which they breed on their own farm.  A waiter brings the whole duck to your table to see, then goes up to a podium where he places the bird inside a several hundred-year-old silver crusher.  There are only two duck crushers in existence today, both housed in the restaurant.  The duck is placed in the body of the crusher, the lid fastened, and then the waiter turns the top.  In this way, the duck is pressed so that its blood squeezes through a spout and into a silver pan.  

The waiter puts the pan of blood over an open flame and carefully mixes several alcohols to create a heavy brown sauce.  The meat is then finely sliced and placed onto the plate along with the sauce.  At the end of the meal, each patron who orders a duck receives a postcard with the bird's serial number.

You can Google the restaurant for a virtual tour.

Getting There:  Flights on Ryan Air from Rome to Paris cost 5-10 Euro one-way. Make sure to check out their amazing deals and then read all the fine print.

San Lorenzo Maggiore

The Naples Underground: Less than a block away from Napoli Sotterranea, don't confuse this underground with the extensive two-hour tour.  Located in the heart of historic Naples, San Lorenzo Maggiore is a smaller underground, but you can walk without a guide, viewing crumbled archways and vendor shops.  It's the only underground that has preserved the city's ancient foundations.

The ruins date back to the Imperial Age following the earthquakes of 62 and 64 AD.  Archeologists found oil lamps imported from North Africa, but the lamps showed no trace of usage.  In this way, experts hypothesized that the lamps were stock items and, therefore, this must have been a bustling marketplace that offered international wares.  Amphorae were found here in abundance, once holding regional wines that sold in exchange for fish (garum) sauce that arrived from the Iberian Peninsula, dried meat from North Africa, and oil that was likely imported from Greece.  The vase makers often put their trademark names on the amphorae, such as A. Vibius Scorfula and A. Valerius Fortunatus.

The names themselves spark questions that can only be left unanswered:  Who were these people?  How did they live? What happened to them?

The examples of amphora as well as other crockery are on display upstairs in the museum.  Within the underground, I can only wander along barren dirt paths or up metal stairs, trying to imagine what these hollow vendor spaces must have looked like.  Then, I come upon a brick oven so well preserved that it seems at any moment wood logs inside might flick once again with fire.

The San Lorenzo Maggiore Church right next door to the underground is worth a peek too.  First built in the 6th century A.D, a Basilica was constructed over the paleochristian site during the 12th century.  It's here that the writer Boccacio fell in love with Fiammetta.

Sales, Sales, Sales

Don't forget that every year in February (as well as July) you'll find deep discounts on all clothing throughout Naples. I've found designer skirts for 10 Euro each as well as shoes, jackets, and more that are 50-70% off. The best places to shop are: Corso Umberto, Vomero, and yes -- the malls where you'll find Piazza Italia and Zara.

The best mall around is Vulcano Buono, shaped like a volcano and located in Nola.

Happy February Shopping!