The endless vocation of Partenope. In Naples Republic of Ideas

A look that belongs to the past makes Naples the showcase of the South and its problems. A more contemporary way of reading reality sees it as the navel of the Mediterranean and the capital of the other Europe, the one that looks to the future, leaving behind the illusions and disappointments of industrial modernity. To this resurgent idea of Mediterranean and the Republic of Ideas which will take place in is dedicated to the role of cities like the Neapolitan one Naples from 19 to 21 April.

REPUBLIC OF IDEAS IN NAPLES

In reality, Partenope has always had a continental vocation. «European before Italian», she defined it Fernand Braudel, the greatest historian of the twentieth century. Who reproached Italy for wasting the capital made up of the formidable potential of this different city.

In fact the Our sea, of which Naples is a fundamental cultural hub, constitutes the backdrop against which the modern idea of ​​Europe was born between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An idea built above all by travelers of the Grand Tour, Nordic and Protestant, as Goethecome Madame de Staël, come Winckelmann who, contemplating in ecstasy the spectacle of antiquity that emerges from the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, transform the South into a metaphor.

Not simply of a geographical space but of a region of history. Of a “southernness over time” to put it Giacomo Leopardi. But these enlightened spirits know very well that Europe minus the Mediterranean equals zero. A calculation that is too difficult for Brussels bureaucrats. Perhaps because it cannot be reduced to a cash operation.

In fact, it was in those years that the city on the gulf became a part of Pompeii, a form of living archaeology, the metaphor of a past that does not pass and that is unable to become the present because it is incapable of synchronizing with the change of direction of history impressed by the Northern countries. This idea is the basis of the notion of underdevelopment. And it is precisely on the eve of the industrial revolution that the anthropological bifurcation between le due Europe, the ancient one and the modern one. Which, from that moment on, begin to reflect each other’s differences. And Naples becomes an icon of this difference. A passerby from the continental imagination. Also thanks to its overflowing ability to produce culture. From archeology which is the great gift that the city offers to the world, with the help of Vesuvius that destroys and preserves. To the music that dominated the scene throughout the eighteenth century with its glorious Conservatories. To the point that Rousseau he recommended talented young people from every country to go to Naples to learn how to translate their passion into melody. These are the same years in which Wolfgang Goethe he invites German cities to copy the waste disposal system he observed in Naples and which appears to him as an example of sustainability. Incredible but true.

In fact, it is precisely on the shores of the Mediterranean that Western civilization was born. And even if throughout history it has moved away from its origin, it is destined to return to it.

It says Leopards in a visionary step of Zibaldone. It may seem like a poetic fantasy. But it is a diviner instinct of the future. Destined to come true as the world transitions from the heavy materiality of iron to the immaterial lightness of liquid crystals. With an increasingly mobile development idea, just like new technologies. Capable of overturning trends that seemed immutable and of subverting the traditional hierarchies of weight and power that characterized the short century. This is why investment in culture and creativity could work the miracle of putting cities like Naples back into play which has so much culture, creativity and imagination.

And it is no coincidence that it returns to excel in cinema, music, theatre, TV series, research and gastronomy. With an increase in soft power that produces an impressive tourist attraction. From the capital of generation zeta.