A Literary Journey Through Italy: From Naples to Rome

Christmas time and gift-giving time for the publishing house Intra Moenia, which from Naples embraces history, traditions, and culture throughout Italy.

Of notable value is the republication of the book “The Saint and the Siren” by Elisabetta Moro, a Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, where she also teaches Cultures and Identities. Patrizia and Partenope are the saint and the siren. Two parallel lives intertwine the destinies of these two creatures and bind them indissolubly to the history and identity of Naples. Both come from the sea. And they give birth to something new. From the siren comes the pagan city, which will first take her name and then become Neapolis. From the saint, the Christian city is reborn. The Neapolitans continue to call themselves after the siren. But they venerate the miraculous liquefactions of Patrizia’s blood. Because the saint and the siren are the two halves of the feminine heart of Naples.

Another Rome, beautiful and neglected, is the one recounted by journalist Stefano Caviglia in “Beautiful Rome in the Suburbs”. It is the suburbs, born when hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured into the new capital in search of fortune, discovering that there was no home for them in the most celebrated city in the world. Thus began the construction of a long sequence of working-class neighborhoods, which continued until almost the end of the twentieth century. First close to the center and then increasingly farther away, in the midst of a countryside rich in archaeological remains whose beauty has always inspired painters and writers. The new city has architectural, but also social, economic, and political characteristics different from the expanding metropolis from which it originates. This book reconstructs its history and seeks to capture its charm, without ignoring its many problems. From Testaccio to Corviale, the story of the great contemporary transformation of Rome.

Rome is also the focus of the delightful “In Rome with Gigi Proietti” by Maurizio Canforini, recounting over fifty years of city history through the human and artistic events of the great Roman actor: from the suburbs after World War II to the Globe Theatre in Villa Borghese, passing through the unrepeatable years of the night club, cellar theaters, and “A me gli occhi, please”.

Also in the Roman context, during the days of the Jubilee, the volume “The Rome of the Jubilee” by Gianfranco Mosconi is very important. He currently teaches Greek History at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio. What were the paths of the pilgrims in Rome during the Late Middle Ages, at the time of the first Jubilee? And how to retrace them in today’s Rome? This volume is a true guide to rediscovering in today’s city the paths and destinations of pilgrims in Rome between the Jubilee of 1300 and that of 1500, through the constant comparison between the city of then and that of today. But it is also an itinerary in the world of legends, beliefs, stories, wonders that accompanied the pilgrims who arrived in Rome.

Finally, we return to Naples with Lejla Mancusi Sorrentino, author of «Favurite! Cu ‘na bbona salute». Not just pizza and spaghetti. Although it has become famous with these two symbolic foods, Neapolitan cuisine offers many other treasures to delight the palates of gourmets. And so this book offers Neapolitans and tourists more than a simple cookbook: the history of ancient Neapolitan dishes and traditions becomes a concrete wish for “bbona salute!”.