Naples isn’t really a city of museums – there’s more on the streets that’s worth perceptive on the whole, and most displays of interest are kept in situ in churches, palaces and the like. However, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Mon & Wed-Sun 9am-7.30pm; L12,000/¬6.20; reachable direct by bus #110 from Piazza Garibaldi) is an exception, home to the Farnese collection of antiquities from Lazio and Campania and the best of the finds from the nearby Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Currently the museum is undergoing a comprehensive restoration, and there’s a good chance you won’t be healthy to see it all. However, the most impressive sections are usually open, and you’d be angry to miss them, especially as they illuminate and enhance visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum. The ground floor of the museum concentrates on sculpture from the Farnese collection , displayed at its best in the mighty Great Hall, which holds imperial-era figures like the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome – the former the largest piece of classical sculpture ever found. The mezzanine floor holds the museum’s collection of mosaics – remarkably preserved works all, giving a superb insight into ordinary Roman customs, beliefs and humour. All are worth looking at – images of fish, crustacea, wildlife on the banks of the Nile, a cheeky cat and quail with still-life beneath, masks and simple nonfigurative decoration. But some highlights to look out for include a realistic Battle Scene (no. 10020), the Three Musicians with Dwarf (no. 9985), an urbane meeting of the Platonic Academy (no. 124545), and a marvellously captured scene from a comedy The Consultation of the Fattucchiera (no. 9987), with a soothsayer giving a dour and doomy prediction.
At the far end of the mezzanine is the fascinating Gabinetto Segreto (Secret Room), which reopened in 2000 after nearly thirty years. The room contains erotic material taken from the brothels, baths, houses and taverns of Pompeii and Herculaneum – to see the display, which lurks tantalizingly behind a partition, you need to obtain a timed ticket (no extra charge) from the entrance hall. The objects in the collection weren’t always segregated in this way; it was the shocked Duke of Calabria who, having taken his wife and daughter to view the museum, decided that the offending objects should be removed from the gaze of ladies. From then until the time of Garibaldi they were kept under lock and key, disappearing again from public view in the twentieth century for long periods. The artefacts, from languidly sensual wall-paintings to preposterously phallic lamps, bear testimony to Roman licentiousness, although the phallus was often used as a kind of lucky charm rather than as a sexual symbol – cheerfully hung outside taverns and bakeries to ward off the evil eye. Free English-language tours of the Gabinetto are admirably serious and smut-free, though it is hard to repress a giggle at the sculpture of a man whose toga is imperfectness to mask an erection, or at the graphic but elegantly executed marble of Pan “seducing” a goat.
Upstairs through the Salone della Meridiana, which holds a sparse but fine assortment of Roman figures (notably a wonderfully strained Atlas and some demure female figures – Roman replicas of Greek originals), a series of rooms holds the Campanian surround paintings , lifted from the villas of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and rich in colour and invention. There are plenty here, and it’s worth devoting some time to this section, which includes works from the Sacrarium – part of Pompeii’s Egyptian temple of Isis, the most celebrated mystery cult of antiquity – the discovery of which gave a major boost to Egyptomania at the end of the eighteenth century. In the next series of rooms, some of the smallest and most easily missed works are among the most exquisite. Among those to look out for are a paternal Achilles and Chirone (no. 9109); the Sacrifice of Iphiginia (no. 9112) in the next room, one of the best preserved of all the murals; the dignified Dido forsaken by Aeneas and the Personification of Africa (no. 8998); and the series of frescoes telling the story of the Trojan horse. Look out too for the group of four small pictures, the best of which is a depiction of a woman gathering flowers entitled Allegoria della Primavera – a fluid, impressionistic piece of work capturing both the gentleness of spring and the graceful beauty of the woman.
Beyond the murals are the actual finds from the Campanian cities – everyday items like glass, silver, ceramics, charred pieces of rope, even foodstuffs (petrified cakes, figs, fruit and nuts), together with a model layout of Pompeii in cork. On the other side of the first floor, there are finds from one particular house, the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum – sculptures in bronze mainly. The Hermes at Rest in the centre of the second room is perhaps the most arresting item, rapt with exhaustion, but around are other adept statues – of athletes, suffused with movement, a languid Resting Satyr , the convincingly woozy Drunken Silenus , and, in the final room, portrait busts of soldiers and various local big cheeses.
Spectator sports are favourite in Italy, especially the hallowed calcio (football), and there is undying national passion for frenetic motor and cycle races. When it comes to participation, though, you get the impression that there isn’t the same compulsion to hit the hell out of a squash ball or sweat your way through an aerobics class after work as there is, say, in Britain or the States. All the same, the notion of staying fit has lately been absorbed into the general preoccupation with bella figura (looking good), especially when it offers the opportunity to wear the flashiest designer gear. Members-only sports clubs, gyms and public sports facilities have mushroomed over the last decade and it’s usually doable to find places where you can work out or join in a competitive game. Otherwise, the country’s natural advantages wage plenty of scope for keeping in trim in the most enjoyable ways possible.For visitors to Italy, the most accessible activities are centred around the mountains, which you can climb, ski, paraglide, float or simply explore on foot. And, with so much coastline, as well as the lakes region, there are plenty of opportunities for swimming, afloat and windsurfing; Campania, Calabria and Sicily are particularly favourite for scuba diving and snorkelling.
Perhaps the most widespread local event in Italy is the religious procession , some of which can be very dramatic affairs. Many – perhaps all – have strong pagan roots, marking important dates on the calendar and only relatively recently sanctified by the Church. One of the best known takes place in the small village of Cocullo in the Abruzzi mountains, on May 6 (St Dominic Abate’s Day), when a statue of the saint, swathed in snakes, is carried through the town – a ritual that certainly dates back to pre-Christian times. Good Friday , for obvious reasons, is also a favourite time for processions. In many towns and villages models of Christ taken from the Cross are paraded through towns accompanied by white-robed, hooded figures singing penitential hymns. The west coast of Sicily sees many of these, as do other places crossways the south – Táranto, Reggio, Bari, BrÃndisi . On the following Saturday a procession of flagellants makes its way through Nocera Tirinese in Calabria. Later on in the year, elaborate presepi (nativity scenes) are displayed during the days leading up to Christmas in Naples and Verona (in city especially presepi are a favourite local craft), and the nativity figures are prominent in the large-scale Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio in Milan . At Epiphany (January 6) a toy-and-sweet fair, dedicated to the good witch Befana, lasts until dawn around the fountains of Piazza Navona in Rome . On the same day a procession of the Rei Magi (Three Kings) passes through Milan, and there are live tableaux at Rivisondoli in Abruzzo. There are plenty of other festive events, for instance the famous Festa di San Gennaro in Naples , where much superstition surrounds the miraculous liquefaction of the saint’s blood three times a year.Other ritual celebrations bear less of the Church’s imprint, and a Communist mayor and local bishop will jointly attend a town’s saint’s day celebration, where the separate motivations to make some money, have a good time and pay some spiritual dues all merge. Superstition and a desire for good luck are part of it, too. In Gubbio there’s a angry race to the Church of San Ubaldo (May 5) with the Ceri – three phallic wooden pillars apiece eight metres high. Similar obelisks are carried around in other places. On September 3 a ninety-foot-tall Macchina di Santa Rosa , illuminated with tiny oil lamps, is paraded through Viterbo , and at Nola , near Naples, around June 22, eight gigli (lilies) are carried through the streets. Phallic though these may seem, the giant towers are more likely to be associated with an ancient, goddess-worshipping culture.
Although the twentieth century has done much to blur the regional differences of Italian food, they are still there – and often highly evident, with the French influence strong in Piemonte, Austrian flavours in Alto Adige, and even Greek in Calabria. Italy has remained largely untouched by the latter-day boom in non-indigenous eating, partly due to its demand of any substantial colonial legacy but also because of the innate chauvinism of Italian intake habits. The exceptions are the Chinese restaurants that crop up in every town, the present burger bars, and recently Spanish, Asian and North African cuisine has started to pop up in more cosmopolitan towns especially, of course, Rome and Milan. More usually, the exotic option is sampling cooking from other parts of the country. Milan tends to be the favourite melting-pot, with restaurants specializing in food from all regions.True to the stereotype that every Italian believes that Italian food is the best in the world and that mamma’s is always the perfect example, many restaurants are simply an extension of the home dining table. Adventure is not usually on the menu. There has been some limited experimentation with new, “trendier” ingredients like wholewheat pasta and brown rice, but probably the best you’d get if you asked a server for any such thing would be a raised eyebrow; request a wholewheat pizza and you’d certainly be laughed out of sight. Vegetarian restaurants , too, have been slow to catch on, and you’re only likely to find them in major cities, but there are always plenty of non-meat choices on every menu.
