—Capodimonte exhibit— Tribute to Capodimonte, from Caravaggio to Picasso is the title of a truly world-class exhibit now on at the Capodimonte museum and running through January 20, 2008. "Four centuries of Masterpieces" is the additional blurb on the poster.

I will no doubt have to check this one out, just so that when my culture-vulture friends (her name is Laura) from abroad visit me, I don't have to listen to, "What?! You live here and you didn't go?!" Gasp. Sputter.

—Bagnoli boat harbor—On again/off again. Back in 2002/3, Naples put in a bid for the 2007 Americas Cup boat regatta or race or whatever they call it. Winning the bid would have then entailed building a new boat harbor in Bagnoli, the proposed site for the event. When the Americas Cup went to Valencia (boo! hiss!) and not Bagnoli, I figured that the plan for the harbor—which both I and Leonardo da Vinci had considered bizarre and unworkable— would have been shelved and that Bagnoli would have to limp along in some other way in its very ambitious plan to rejuvenate itself from a century of decay.

Recent reports in the paper report that the plan is now "off again", meaning that it had been "on again" even after the Americas Cup idea got deep-sixed. I guess I wasn't paying attention. The concern is for "insabbiamento" of the area. If it were a river, that would be "silting up," so I suppose this is "sanding up." In any event, mayor Iervolino insists that the plan is going to go forward anyway, in spite of engineering and ecological concerns. So that means it's "on again." That, of course, may change.

—A year ago, the Naples city council was moved out of its long-time assemby hall in the historic Maschio Angioino. The intention was that the structure could then begin to play more of a cultural role in the life of the city. So far, that has not happened. The space that was gained was to have served as a bee-hive of activity for "Programmazione e progettazione Grandi Eventi"—that is, "Programming and Planning of Major Events." These would include, among other things, the yearly Monuments in May open-house in which virtually every historic building in Naples is open to the public; the "Christmas in Naples" festivities; and the recently reorganized Piedigrotta Festival, the most famous of all annual Neapolitan street parades but which has fallen on hard times in recent decades. (They got it off the ground this year, though, but, sure enough, lack of practice showed when one of the floats of Mt. Vesuvius caught fire, leading spectactors to ooh and aah for a while at how real it all looked—until it burned to the ground.) In any event, the space in the Maschio Angioino is still sitting there unused and untended.

—Soccer—From the thumping on their floor (my ceiling) the other night, I figured something was up. My teenaged neighbors had been driven into a frenzy of enthusiasm by Naples' 3-1 victory over Juventus. That team from Torino is a perennial powerhouse in Italian soccer; in 102 years of play, "Juve" has won the Italian A-League championship 27 times (!). By comparision, Naples has won twice and has struggled greatly over the last 15 years (even being demoted to the B-League, but now back in the A-League); the victory was an enormous boost to local sports fans (besides putting cracks in my plaster). In the 20-team A-League, Naples is now in sixth place.

—The Principe di Napoli Gallery is undergoing a major overhaul. It was built between 1876 and 1883 and, thus, was part of the first great wave of construction in Naples after the unification of Italy. It was built before the city embarked on the "real" wave of urban renewal called the ”Risanamento”,which entailed gutting large parts of the city to lay new roads and put up new buildings, including the gigantic Galleria Umberto, finished in 1890. The construction of the Principe di Napol was much less dramatic and less surgical; very little was knocked down to clear space for it. Generally speaking, it was part of modest project to spruce up the area, including the National Museum across the street and the adjacent art academy. The resulting gallery was relatively small, intimate, and modelled on similar arcades and galleries in London and Paris. It was a small commercial center as well as a social gathering place for those in the area, including the art students from next door. After decades of neglect, the gallery will be totally restored. That includes reopening rooms on the upper floors of the premises that have long been unused. It also includes installing glass doors at the three entrances such that air-conditioning and heating can be used if need be.