It is impossible to separate pizza from Naples from its Neapolitan culture – the two are explicitly linked. And to fully celebrate this culture, we offer you some fun and interesting tidbits of Neapolitan information.
The Neapolitan comic Antonio De Curtis, known as Totò, is an example of humour that can be appreciated across cultures. True, he is often full of the verbal dexterity that only native speakers of Italian can appreciate, yet his flights of outrageous language are so often combined with pure visual humour that he is easily one of the most accessible of all film comics, language and culture notwithstanding.
Nothing will start a marathon session of tale-swapping quicker than Neapolitans sitting around recalling scenes from their favorite Totò films. If you want one where the pompous get their come-uppance, there's the train scene where he offers to help a windbag senator with his luggage, taking each piece and carefully passing it out the window of the moving train, and for sheer pantomimic grace, only Chaplin at his best can compare with Totò's version of a marionette puppet dancing his way across the stage to the strains of the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. His most memorable films have him in the role of the true clown, the little man down on his luck, just trying to make it through another day.
A number of other Totòs have found their way into the language. "Siamo uomini o caporali?!" ("Are we men or corporals?") and the immortal, but untranslatable line (because it contains a grammatical error which contradicts the spirit of the sentence): "Signore si nasce ed io lo nacqui!" (Maybe something like, "Gentlemen are born, not made, and I is one!") He was also the author of a number of well-loved poems and songs in Neapolitan dialect, most memorable of which are A' livella (a poem about death as the great equalizer) and "Malafemmina," a love song.
Like many comics, Totò did not become appreciated as a "true clown" until after his death. But most Italians knew right from the start what it took critics decades to figure out, and now through the pleasant little time-machine known as television, we can all see why.
Pulcinella
From Greek drama to Balinese trance-dancers to modern psychodrama in which actors wear masks of their own faces, in every culture and in all of history, there have been masks.
The mask took on new meaning at the end of the 16th century in Italy, when there arose a form of theatre known as the Commedia dell'Arte. One of the best-known Italian masks is the one that represents Naples, Pulcinella. He is generally presented as a hunchback (remember that male hunchbacks are considered lucky in Naples!); he is dressed in a large, white smock and soft white hat, and wears a black half-mask characterized by a hook-nose. His character type is that of the jolly bungler, always poor and hungry, yet always able to get by, singing songs and playing the mandolin. In his stereotypical ineptness, however, there always remains the touch of the true court jester, the "fool," who delights in snubbing his nose at the powers that be, without their ever really catching on to how much wisdom is hidden behind the mask.
It is that anti–establishment part of Pulcinella's personality, the total disrespect of authority that seems to be not so hidden in much modern-day Neapolitan behavior. That's the reason—say some—that Neapolitans drive they way they do. The state put that traffic light on the corner, telling you when to go and when to stop. A free citizen is almost honor–bound to ignore it.
Enjoy the show of some Pulcinella characters making pizza dough
-they make it truly a theatrical experience!
San Gennaro
Yearly on the first weekend of May (on Saturday) and on the 19th
September amazement spreads through Naples Cathedral. There one
can marvel at how the blood of the beheaded San Gennaro liquifies
in its ampoule. The day of the blood miracle is an important
feast for Naples and the people celebrate it accordingly.
The people of Naples rather have a personal than religious relationship
with San Gennaro. They present him their wishes with love and expect
them to be fulfilled. >>Click for article
From Greek drama to Balinese trance-dancers to modern psychodrama in which actors wear masks of their own faces, in every culture and in all of history, there have been masks.