Naples weddings by Francesco Cito

Those who prefer to think romance dead, gorgeous display outdated and baroque vulgar need not read on.

The matrimonial plumage favoured by the brides of Naples does not appeal to drab souls: these women offer not a beaker, but a Nebuchadnezzar full of the warm south.

Drenched as it is in the love of the ostentatious, dictated by a refusal to allow circumstances to interfere with illusion, the Neapolitan wedding remains one of the great spectacles of the Italian peninsula.

Almost two centuries ago, an English poet described Naples as the metropolis of a ruined paradise. Matters have not much improved since then; of all the Italian cities, Naples lives closest to a state of perpetual crisis.

The city hall is bankrupt, the municipal treasury long emptied for the enjoyment of certain officials. The gridlocked traffic produces the effect of a slow-bubbling Vesuvius on the lungs and ears, the hospitals can present scenes from bedlam, the port district provides a permanent set for any film maker wanting to shoot a remake of Lucky Luciano.

The local gangsters, the Camorra, extend their tentacles throughout the city’s commerce. There is almost no new employment, although the Italian State maintains an army of functionaires, several varieties of policemen and whole legions of minor professionals whose carefully graduated jobs preserve a deceptive hierarchy of merit.

Thousands of other people hustle for a living in the black economy, with a part-time job or a small business on the side.

It doesn’t seem to matter how poor their families are, with all these girls planning their own weddings. You get the feeling that they are determined to be treated like a queen or a Hollywood star.

So from the ranks of the impoverished and the mildly shabby, myriad brides blossom forth for one radiant day. In Naples, much of life is lived out of doors. But it is also a secret city. A decaying building that seems to have rotted since the departure of the Bourbons may contain apartments of private luxury and taste to rival any of the 16th arrondissement.

The meanest basement can conceal a spotless, if cramped, family home from whose kitchen there wafts a comforting aroma of fine food.

L’arte di arrangiarsi -the art of getting by- is said to govern daily life in Naples. It finds its ultimate expression in the desire to present the best possible impression to family and friends on the wedding day, with apparently cavalier disregard for cost.

There is, first and foremost, the dress to consider. Minimalism and the modern, quite clearly, will never suit a girl who desires to out-Versace Versace. Then the glory of her hair: should it cascade in tresses or flow graciously beneath a diaphanous veil? One need not, it seems, agonise about make-up, but simply apply it in copious and flattering quantities. Bouquets, parasols, bridesmaids, costumed retainers- anything may be had to order, even dignified gentlemen of a certain age, hired for the day to appear as “uncles” from Rome or Milan.

The church, of course, must be baroque and the ceremony redolent of myth and ancient ecstasy. But in a city where Spanish kings and their architects succeeded the classical Greeks and Romans, no shortage of atmospherics may be expected.

The Italian language – mellifluous, drawn-out, languid and caressing- lends itself to the service of holy matrimony as no other aspect of the liturgy. There will be connotations of virginity and sacrifice, although, mercifully for all concerned, the traditional proofs of consummation are no longer much in vogue. The religious ceremony is the centrepiece but not in the highlight of the day.
Perched on the airy slopes of Vomero, above the city centre, or along the coastline towards Posillipo, the lavish wedding host can choose from many a restaurant where the clams will be fresh, the sea-bass well roasted and the wine from a drinkable vintage – perhaps, indeed the white wine from the slopes of Vesuvius itself, known as Lachrimae Christi, the tears of Christ. The bride, however, need expect to eat no more than a demure fork full: there is the extended photo session to follow.

Here the love of fantasy and display is given full range. It is obviously considered humdrum simply to be profiled against the backdrop of the bay, with a misty Sorrento in the distance. Much better to strike a dramatic pose in the absurd arcades and mosaics of the Galleria erected for King Umberto I in 1887, perhaps awaiting sunset or dawn for luminous effect.

But most symbolic of all is to take the garlanded boat out across the bay towards Capri, to be pictured gazing on Shelley’s “waves upon the shore, like light dissolved in star-showers”. No doubt the poet, as he wrote, mused on the nymph parthenope, washed up in dim antiquity on the beach of the first Greek colony at Naples. One rather doubts that the modern bride does.

Reproduction of material from any original Pix4notes.wordpress.com pages
without written permission is strictly prohibited.