The Neapolitan hill of Vomero is not a good example of environmental and landscape protection. Although of remote foundation, to the splendor of the late nineteenth century, to the beautiful tree-lined central arteries and liberty villas, in the sixties of the twentieth century it was the symbol of the urban destruction of Naples. Its history, however, is linked to the cultural life of the city and to many references. Of artists, writers, painters who lived there for the climate, healthiness and quiet hills very far from the "belly" described by Matilde Serao. The network of streets, at the time designed on the example of Baron Haussmann's Paris, still today bear the names of men of culture and talent.
An interesting meeting point of this tormented part of Naples, the sense of an artistic testimony lived in a lively urban perimeter, is the exhibition "Neapolitan charm. Guido Di Renzo, Giuseppe Casciaro and the artistic community of Vomero in the first half of the twentieth century". Exhibition that will be set up in Bari, in the rooms of the Museum and Art Gallery of Medieval and Modern Art "Corrado Giaquinto" and will remain open until 1st December next. The exhibition was born from the donation to the Pinacoteca of 172 works by Guido Di Renzo – born in Abruzzo, but died in Naples in 1956 – a pupil of the Salento painter Giuseppe Casciaro. Casciaro was a stable point of reference for dozens of intellectuals, transforming the house in via Luca Giordano into a valuable meeting place. In anticipation of the exhibition, it is recalled that Di Renzo trained in the Neapolitan city and participated in many events, enjoying success and recognition. The most important were certainly the purchase of his works by King Vittorio Emanuele III and the Municipality of Naples.
Sculptures by Di Renzo will also be exhibited in Bari in a sort of comparison with the works of Casciaro and in a period setting of the Vomerese artistic community. The rooms will also exhibit works by Vincenzo Ciardo, Attilio Pratella, Luca Postiglione, Giuseppe Aprea, Francesco Galante, Tello Torelli, Filippo Cifariello and Francesco De Matteis. A condensation of commitment and creativity of Naples in the first half of the twentieth century. All around a hill which for over a century has been seen as a place for the spirit, imagination and intellectual meeting place. Then crushed by the urban obsession and even more by the desire to allocate this upper part of the city to a privileged space for the middle class of professions and businesses. A disastrous and nefarious project with more fathers than it has raped the ancient village, replaced many ancient and noble Art Nouveau buildings with tons of reinforced concrete and stunning pillars. An abnormal concentration of over 50 thousand inhabitants, with a population density among the highest in Italy, but for many still a distinctive sign of Neapolitanness. It is difficult to imagine today, in this perimeter of 2 square km, those ferments which animated the cultural life to which the Bari Exhibition refers and above all the presence at Vomero for the healthy environment of quality artists.
