My series of blogs See Naples and Live (13 October 2021 to 19 February 2022) attracted a great many readers, so here is the first in a new series dedicated once more to the most amazing of cities...
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Gaetano Bonelli
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Naples is the outsider, the underdog, defiant in the face of adversity... and so too is one of its greatest champions, Gaetano Bonelli.
For four decades Bonelli has been collecting anything and everything that documents the history of this great city, his city.
His treasure trove – the Bonelli Collection – is tucked away in rooms off the quiet Piazzetta San Gennaro a Materdei, to the north of the historic centre.
But though he has mouthwatering items on display to delight visitors, the bulk of his accumulated documents, posters, memorabilia and ephemera are shut away in files and boxes. Bonelli has neither the space nor the funding to show all he has gathered.
Don't let that put you off visiting. Even the relatively small selection of items on display is well worth seeing... and some of them on their own may keep you entranced for far longer than you might imagine.
So why is there no sizeable Bonelli Museum to exhibit all of the Neapolitana that he has collected over the past 40 years? Because, he says, the establishment doesn't want to know. The implication is that he is seen as an amateur rather than an academic, and that he has been indiscriminate in his collecting – with Bonelli, the "lowbrow" sits comfortably alongside the "highbrow".
"People have donated pieces to me... sometimes I ask local associations for things. This material is coming from the people – that's why the big institutions don't want to know," he says. He has historic posters of yesteryear from the Teatro San Carlo and thought the legendary opera house might want to display them, but apparently he got nowhere.
How did Bonelli's remarkable journey start?
"Stamp collecting," he says with a boyish smile. It was a common childhood hobby for his generation, but while most lost interest, he found that the collecting bug grew into a passion.
The southern Italian earthquake of 1980 (which caused much death and destruction in and around Naples) had a profound effect on the young Bonelli.
"I decided in my own little way to do something for the city," he says.
"As a kid I had fallen in love with Napoli. When I started collecting things, I became like a tourist in my own city. But the things I discovered could not be just for me."
His desire to share his discoveries was as strong as his commitment to collecting.
"I've suffered a lot in doing this," he says, without a hint of self-pity. "But I am devoted to history and motivated by love."
Bonelli was an honoured guest at the recent 48th anniversary gala of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) in Washington, where a selection of his exhibits documenting Italian emigration from the south of the country were on display.
Like the prophet without honour in his own country, Bonelli may have more renown internationally than he does in Naples.
But one day, if there is any justice, that will change.
The Bonelli Collection, Fondazione Casa dello Scugnizzo Onlus,
3 Piazzetta San Gennaro a Materdei.
Visits by reservation; 340 4844132; g.bonelli72@gmail.com.
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Gaetano Bonelli and Nigel Summerley
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