NAPLES TO UNVEIL. A WIDESPREAD MUSEUM: THE ROAD CURTAINS OF THE THREE DECUMANI

The Neapolitan historic centre, for his multiple historic and artistic testimonies, can be considered a real “outdoor Museum” of the city. From the itself bird’s eye view you can admire the rich structure of squares, streets, alleys, extraordinary monuments, aristocratic palaces, decent buildings and simple constructions placed into specific urban grids. Different realities that you can recognise everywhere by observing the relations with the urban context extended to more and less large morphological areas, or by going to their historic matrices which have generated them and reading their connotations in successive periods of time, or, also, by analysing the constructive and compositional aspects of the building units, introducing an open classification to explore their form, structure, deterioration, etc. Walking through the Major, Superior and Inferior Decumani, which have already been favourite locations for ancient Greeks and Romans, you can admire the prestigious facades of fifteenth and sixteenth century Palaces of Neapolitan noble families like Carafa, Filomarino, Mazziotti, Pignatelli, Marigliano. Prospectuses that become the privileged place of the evident expression of a demonstration of the noble local power, through which great figures of architects show modern techno-structural capabilities, anticipating, sometimes, ideas and modus operandi that will become more typical for the Roman, Raphaelesque and Michelangelesque Renaissance. Masonry palaces with the characteristic yellow and grey tuff, morphologically developed around a central court which is accessed by an elegant vaulted vestibule, characterised by the rigorous ashlar facies, in opus isodomum, in a style aimed at recovering a classic formal language made by emblems, shields, statues, capitals, volute, reveal a rich and innovative city. The prospectuses of the sumptuous palaces of the Parthenopean Decumani become a stimulating page to read and understand for the knowledge of the city’s historical identity, to extract data from it, in a priceless experience which offers an immediate fruition to the pleased gaze.