A kind gentleman at a small library in Pozzuoli the other day informed me that the newly restored cathedral (duomo) would be “inaugurated in a few days.” He wasn’t too sure what that meant. After more than a decade of planning and rebuilding, the church (destroyed by fire in 1967) would officially reopen, but after that?

The duomo is in the oldest part of Pozzuoli, the old city, the Rione terra, a 200 x 240 meter area atop a tufa promontory over the bay. The duomo is on the site of an earlier temple to Caesar Augustus. Most sources claim the site became a Christian place of worship around the year 600. The early church on that spot was dedicated to St. Proculus, the patron saint of Pozzuoli, one of the seven Christian martyrs killed in the Diocletian persecutions of the year 305. (Another one of the seven was San Gennaro, the patron of Naples.)

The church remained in use over the centuries and was badly damaged in the 1500s by the same seismic events that caused the nearby hill, Monte Nuovo, to appear. It took its familiar configuration under bishop Martin de Leon y Cardenas in the mid-1600s when it was transformed into a true cathedral, home to religious art by some of the most prominent artists of the times.

The entire Rione Terra has been deserted since 1970 when seismic activity forced evacuation of the area. Current restoration has produced a good museum at the entrance to the area and, now, the duomo. The rest of the area is in ruins. There is one road in and the same road out. There is little sidewalk space and such things as emergency exits in the restored Duomo may not meet the standards they must if the church is really to serve as a place of worship. Ideally, you would have the museum at one end and the duomo at the other; the buildings in between would be bustling with those who serve the Grand Tourists of today. That is not likely to happen any time soon. Pozzuoli was also very hard hit by the earth tremors of the 1980s, followed by a time when all available resources were channeled into building a satellite town of New Pozzuoli, resettling evacuees, etc. Culture was not a priority. Yet, Pozzuoli and environs include the Phlegrean Fields, Greek and Roman archaeology (with the large Pozzuoli amphitheater), and the adjacent area of Baia, now itself a separate center of antiquities covered by the term National Archaeological Museum of Baia. The area offers a lot.