An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Parthenope

 Fontana della Sirena - Piazza Sannazar, Naples

Odysseus had a tendency to fall under the spell of enchantresses – at least that was one of his excuses for being late getting home to Ithaca.

However, one alluring female not only found herself being resisted by him, but she was so distraught at her failure that she surrendered her own life.

She was Parthenope, one of the Sirens, who flung herself into the sea and was washed up dying on the shore of what today is the city of Naples. Greek settlers here, on the west coast of what became Italy, originally named their town after her.

Parthenope was half-bird and half-woman (as the Sirens were originally described). Her legend became entwined with the history of Naples, and there are now three fountains in the city that commemorate her.

The most unusual is the Fontana di Spinacorona whose "lactating" breasts actually spill water over Vesuvius below her. In their impeccable guide Secret Naples, Valerio Ceva Grimaldi and Maria Franchini recount that this 15th-century depiction of Parthenope was intended to have a calming and contemplative effect, but "it has always been popularly known as the 'fountain of the tits'."

Fontana di Spinacorona

Another Parthenope tribute is the Fontana della Sirena at Piazza Sannazar (at the top of this post) and the third is the more modern one at Napoli Centrale railway station (featured along with other Siren images from my 2020 odyssey on this blog at An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague  – Siren Land).

It was only in the Middle Ages that the image of the Sirens underwent a makeover with their emergence as half-woman and half-fish – and a merger with all the many legends of mermaids who lured sailors to their doom.

Over the centuries, depictions of the Sirens have become increasingly erotic, one example being the Fountain of the Sirens at Maratea, which I passed through last year, heading up the beautiful west coast of Italy, north to Naples. 

Fountain of the Sirens at Maratea