Unesco heritage Neapolitan song? In the city, some say: 'Aìzame 'a mesata'
The government launches the candidature of traditional songs as an intangible asset. But in Naples there is still no industry linked to the genre
Few things are taken as seriously in Naples as football. By a strange twist of fate, a handful of days before the start of the 2026 World Cup, the third consecutive without the Azzurri on the pitch, the Italia government decides to launch the candidatureof the Classical Neapolitan song as intangible heritage of Unesco, in an event with Milly Carlucci, Placido Domingo and Patti Smith (sic) emphatically entitled "Champions of the world. Italia loves Unesco'.
Tourism Minister Gianmarco Mazzi explained it this way: 'Someone asked me whether this name is provocative or ironic because of our exclusion from the World Cup. I answer that it is neither: we want to affirm that Italia is world champion' in other areas, as well as 'in other sports'. Meanwhile, irony for irony's sake, the event is being celebrated in Verona, a city that does not have a great feeling for Naples and Neapolitans.
We can already imagine the Leitmotiv in the bars of the Rione Sanità.Won't Gigio Donnarumma (born in Castellammare di Stabia) cross gloves with the likes of Vinicius, Lautaro and Dembélé? What the hell do we care! We have 61 World Heritage Sites and another 20 intangible assets recognised by Unesco, the latest of which is Italian Cuisine. What do you do with the four stars on the blue jersey? Now we are also nominating the Neapolitan song, which in the event of recognition will go alongside the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo (recognised in 2017) and truffle hunting and truffle hunting (2021)...
Irony aside, let's stay with the Neapolitan song. Sacrosanct that it be celebrated, even better that it be studied. Beginning with its origins: when Guglielmo Cottrau, scion of a French family that had moved to Naples behind Joseph Bonaparte, published the Musical Pastimes (1824), a collection of songs heard from life and rearranged 'with piano accompaniment'. By reading (the two fundamental volumes of the History of Neapolitan Song by Pasquale Scialò, for example, published by Neri Pozza) you make interesting discoveries about the birth of this 'popular song written by a composer', a genre that cuts across social classes, like the Neapolitan language itself, which has managed to be both literary (Lu cunto de li cunti) and sub-proletarian.
You come across masterpieces like Fenesta ca lucive (1842), set to music by Vincenzo Bellini, and 'A vucchella (1892), to a text by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Discover the success of Enrico Caruso, the world's first recording star, and fall in love with the dualism between the man of the salons (Roberto Murolo) and the man of the people (Sergio Bruni). The Neapolitan song has traversed the centuries, counting and allowing itself to be contaminated: it has become swing (Renato Carosone) and blues (Pino Daniele), it has been dub (Almamegretta), today it is urban (Geolier and Luchè) but also looks back to tradition (Sal Da Vinci, winner of the last Sanremo Festival). It has survived the death of the Neapolitan Song Festival, older and more prestigious than Sanremo in origin, yet abandoned to its fate amid general indifference. In short: the Neapolitan song is something alive.
