There are those who say that, by now, Little Italy is more an empty enclosure created ad hoc for tourists than the ethnic district that once represented the hub of the Italian community in New York. Some of Little Italy’s historic premises have passed by hand several times, losing contact with the original descendants, and often also with the Italian roots that characterized those same places. Whatever the truth or reason, it must be said that a link with Italy remains, in the memory of those same places and in the connections that Little Italy continues to seek with contemporary Italy. Also for this reason, soon, will rise a new mural dedicated to San Gennaro and to the memory of the Italian emigration. It’s called In Sanguine Foedus. The Saint and will be the American continuation of a work inaugurated on May 22 at the port of Naples, in front of the Molo San Vincenzo: one of the places from which, between the end of the nineteenth and twentieth century, left thousands of Italians directed in the United States.
The project starts from Naples but looks mainly in New York, because it is there that many of those stories have come, they have turned and have become part of the Italian American history. The first mural, entitled In Sanguine Foedus. New World, was created by the Neapolitan artist Vittorio Valiante and reconstructs the faces of men, women and children emigrated overseas. The work was born from historical photographs, family memories and biographies. Each face is accompanied by a QR code that allows you to read the story of the person represented, so the work continues beyond the image.
The mural in Manhattan will instead be dedicated to San Gennaro, the saint most tied to Neapolitan popular devotion and also one of the most used symbols from the Italian community in New York. Moreover, just in Little Italy the Feast of San Gennaro is held every year, a festival born in 1926 among Neapolitan immigrants and has become one of the most important events in the neighborhood. It will also be a way to give a new meaning and new importance to the memory of emigration in a place where that memory is still present but sometimes it is reduced to folklore, signs and mere tourist call.
To connect the two works will be the “red thread” that crosses the project. In Naples recalls the link between those who left, but also the blood of San Gennaro, patron of the city and central figure for many emigrants. In New York that thread will take on another meaning that not only concerns the departure, but the arrival, adaptation, the way a community tried to keep itself changing language, work, neighborhood and habits. The project also includes a bronze copy of the historic statue of San Gennaro on the Molo San Vincenzo, destined to Manhattan as a sign of the relationship between the two cities.
The initiative was born from an idea of Francesco Andoli and Germana Valentini, with INWARD National Observatory on Urban Creativity, the support of the Authority of Harbour System of the Central Tyrrhenian Sea and the patronage, among others, of the General Consulate of the United States in Naples and the National Museum of Italian Migration. There is also a documentary on the realization of the works and the families involved.
L’articolo A mural of San Gennaro to connect Little Italy and Naples proviene da IlNewyorkese.
