Naples ’44

Theme

Naples's character

Naples’s social fabric, class, theatricality, daily life/customs

Appears in 25 diary entries.

  1. September 17 1943
    A brief, peaceful excursion to the hill village of Capaccio offers a striking contrast to the surrounding warfare — including a first encounter with a German POW.
  2. October 6 1943
    Arriving in a ruined, waterless Naples, the section settles into a grand requisitioned palazzo on the Riviera di Chiaia.
  3. October 10 1943
    Amid the grim work of processing denunciations, Lewis is struck by the vivid street life and rituals of a working-class Neapolitan neighborhood.
  4. October 15 1943
    Introduction of Vincente Lattarullo, an eccentric, impoverished informant obsessed with justice and etiquette, who becomes a key civilian contact.
  5. October 25 1943
    Lewis reflects on the city's collapse into near-medieval conditions — makeshift clothing, scavenging, and looting of abandoned military equipment.
  6. November 5 1943
    New contacts Losurdo and Mosca reveal the same pattern as Lattarullo: impoverished nobility clinging to grand, half-empty palazzi.
  7. November 10 1943
    A Neapolitan prince and his sister calmly request that she be admitted to a (nonexistent) army brothel, illustrating the era's blunt attitudes to sex and survival.
  8. November 15 1943
    Lattarullo hosts an elaborate lunch cobbled together from borrowed furniture and his one prized heirloom, despite having almost nothing.
  9. November 25 1943
    Wartime hunger drives extreme culinary improvisation, including eating storks and rumors of a manatee served at a banquet for General Clark.
  10. December 9 1943
    A Sunday spent observing the palazzo neighborhood's blend of aristocratic grandeur and thriving working-class street life.
  11. January 7 1944
    A visit to Donna Maria "La Pitonessa," a former circus performer turned wealthy landowner, in the Camorra zone.
  12. February 12 1944
    Lewis reflects on the cultural gulf between cosmopolitan Naples and the archaic, vendetta-bound countryside just miles away, as seen through Lattarullo's ignorance of it.
  13. February 28 1944
    The arrival of spring in Naples is marked by seasonal foods, street cries, and a burst of communal spring-cleaning and song.
  14. April 7 1944
    Interviews with escaped British POWs reveal the risky generosity of Italian camp workers who smuggled them civilian clothing.
  15. April 14 1944
    A marriage vetting brings Lewis to the elegant, refined Contessa della Peruta, a rare and striking contrast to the poverty he usually encounters.
  16. April 25 1944
    Dinner at Frazer's looted, makeshift flat showcases the improvised elegance Neapolitans manage despite having almost nothing.
  17. May 1 1944
    The onset of summer heat is announced by a street vendor's mournful cry, prompting the city's rhythms to visibly slow down.
  18. June 7 1944
    Lattarullo's improvised income as a professional "mourning relative" at funerals picks up again with the fall of Rome, complete with a rented car and driver.
  19. June 9 1944
    Hospitalized again with malaria, Lewis receives a parade of eccentric visitors from his network of contacts, to the disapproval of hospital staff.
  20. July 12 1944
    A rare day off as tourist to Pozzuoli reveals a town strangely untouched by the war, calmer and more foreign-feeling than the rest of the Naples area.
  21. July 24 1944
    Reflections on Naples's theatrical character, including an elaborate deathbed farewell ceremony and a search of an arrested prince's opulent apartment.
  22. August 15 1944
    A visit to an eccentric, aging Marchesa living amid ruin in her ancestral castle, rumored for scandalous past behavior with local youths.
  23. August 18 1944
    Lewis settles into a stripped-down, damaged hotel in Benevento, comically failing to avoid the pasta he'd meant to forgo in favor of rations.
  24. September 25 1944
    A reunion with an old colleague who has become almost entirely assimilated into Southern Italian life prompts reflection on how deeply the region changes people.
  25. October 10 1944
    A description of the Neapolitan tradition of autumn *ottobrate* family outings to gather chestnuts, mushrooms, and wild greens.

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