Becoming Neapolitan : citizen culture in Baroque Naples

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Becoming Neapolitan : citizen culture in Baroque Naples

John A. Marino

Johns Hopkins University Press, c2011

  • : hardcover

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Note

Includes bibliographical (p. [303]-331) references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Naples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries managed to maintain a distinct social character while under Spanish rule. John A. Marino's study explores how the population of the city of Naples constructed their identity in the face of Spanish domination. As Western Europe's largest city, early modern Naples was a world unto itself. Its politics were decentralized and its neighborhoods diverse. Clergy, nobles, and commoners struggled to assert political and cultural power. Looking at these three groups, Marino unravels their complex interplay to show how such civic rituals as parades and festival days fostered a unified Neapolitan identity through the assimilation of Aragonese customs, Burgundian models, and Spanish governance. He discusses why the relationship between mythical and religious representations in ritual practices allowed Naples's inhabitants to identify themselves as citizens of an illustrious and powerful sovereignty and explains how this semblance of stability and harmony hid the city's political, cultural, and social fissures. In the process, Marino finds that being and becoming Neapolitan meant manipulating the city's rituals until their original content and meaning were lost. The consequent widening of divisions between rich and poor led Naples's vying castes to turn on one another as the Spanish monarchy weakened. Rich in source material and tightly integrated, this nuanced, synthetic overview of the disciplining of ritual life in early modern Naples digs deep into the construction of Neapolitan identity. Scholars of early modern Italy and of Italian and European history in general will find much to ponder in Marino's keen insights and compelling arguments.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Urbs et Orbis Part I: Urban Stratigraphy and the Siren's Lyre 1. Myth and History: From Italy to Naples 2. Ritual Time and Ritual Space Part II: City Solidarities and Nodes of Power 3. Patronage: The Church and the Heavenly City 4. The Rule of the Games: Playing Court 5. Allegrezza: The City Rules Conclusion: The Spectacle and the Citizen Appendix Notes Works Cited Index

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