Vomero
Vomero is a hilltop district of Naples, Italy — comprising approximately and a population of 48,000.
Vomero is noted for its central square, Piazza Vanvitelli; the ancient Petraio, its earliest path up and down to the original city of Naples; its ancient district of Rione Antignano; Floridiana Park and Villa Floridiana; the medieval fortress, Castel Sant'Elmo; three funiculars connecting to downtown historic districts; its active pedestrian zone — and its prominent location overlooking greater Naples, Mount Vesuvius, the Bay of Naples and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Adjacent to the Arenella, Soccavo, Fuorigrotta, Chiaia, Montecalvario and Avvocata districts, the street and placenames within Vomero are typically named after noted artists, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers or architects, each with a prominent Neopolitan connection at the time of Vomero's development.
Residents go by the demonym, Vomeresi.
Etymology of ''Vomero''
During the very earliest period, when Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, the Vomerese hill was called Bomòs. By the sixteenth century the name Vomero was used, possibly a corruption of the Greek Bomòs.In Roman times, the hilltop area was called Paturcium, from Patulcius, a name related to Giano, the god to whom the hill was dedicated. In the early Middle Ages, via linguistic corruption, this became Patruscolo or Patruscio.
The name Vomero took hold at the end of the sixteenth century, deriving from the area's agricultural history – and initially referring to a historic farmhouse located on the hill, rather than the hill itself.
Notably, the word vomere, is used to describe a ploughshare and was the name of agricultural game, the winner being the plowman who could trace the straightest furrow.
The hilltop's agricultural activity earned it various nicknames, including Broccoli Hill, il Quartiere dei Broccoli and ''Collina dei Broccoli.''
Transit
To access Vomero, residents and visitors use an array of well-traveled vehicular streets and roundabouts; a system of subway, bus, funicular and metro line; and an extensive pedestrian network that includes escalators, historic stairs and paths, and a modern pedestrian zone.The Petraio The oldest access to Vomero remains intact today: an extensive network of pedestrian stairs and paths from the city's original neighborhoods below. One of the most notable of these paths is the historic Petraio, which arose from an ancient meandering watercourse — ultimately to be improved, inhabited and connected by a series of rustic steps, alleys and ramps — varying in slope and width — and framed by buildings, churches, and small businesses.
Funiculars As development expanded between 1800 and 1900, the municipality constructed three funiculars, railways each with two counterbalanced passenger cabs attached at opposite ends of a cable system, the two cabs ascending in descending in concert between their upper and lower stations. The stations of the Chiaia, Montesanto and Central Funicular are closely located in Vomero and connect to three radially-distant lower stations across the Naples downtown.
Metro Since 1980, Vomero has been served by Line 1 of the Naples Metro, specifically at Quattro Giornate and Piazza Vanvitelli stations.
ZTL Augmenting the neighborhood sidewalks and prioritizing pedestrian movement, Vomero inaugurated an active Limited Traffic Zone in 1994, connecting Piazza Vanvitelli, via Cimarosa and via Alessandro Scarlatti. In 2008, the zone incorporated via Luca Giordano, linking upper and lower Vomero, the San Martino area, via Cilea, via Belvedere and the oldest area of Vomero, Antignano.
Escalators Three urban, outdoor escalators help compensate for Vomero's hilly terrain, connecting Piazza Fuga to Via Morghen and connecting the upper end of Via Scarlatti to two higher intermediate small piazzas on the way to the upper station of the Montesanto Funicular and the prominent tourist destinations, Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino.
Vehicular access Vehicular access to Vomero is served directly by Exit 9 of the Autostrada A56, commonly known as the Tangenziale di Napoli. The exit accesses via Cilea and via Caldieri as well as via Pigna junctions, the latter which leads to the neighboring districts of Soccavo and Arenella. Car, truck, motorcycle and scooter traffic to Vomero is also accessible via numerous streets connecting to adjacent neighborhoods. Numerous bus lines connect Vomero to greater Naples.
History
Until the end of the nineteenth century, Vomero was a largely uninhabited area, relatively distant from the city of Naples. Its oldest area, around present day Antignano, consisted of scattered rural dwellings and villages remaining from Roman settlements, near what was a relatively important road. Before underground tunnels connected Fuorigrotta and Mergellina,, the hill road known as Via Puteolis Neapolim per colles crossed what is now the Vomero ridge as the primary connection between the Phlegraean area to the west and the city of Naples, proper. Around the 2nd century AD the street was reconfigured and renamed via Antiniana, giving name to the Antignano district, where the Miracle of San Gennaro is said to have taken place for the first time, between 413 and 431 AD.After subsequent Norman and Swabian domination, with the Angevins, Naples in 1266 became the capital of the Kingdom of Naples, remaining the capital until the Italian Unification in 1860. During this period, development began to move uphill for strategic reasons, toward present day Vomero. The area began to populate after the construction a Carthusian Cloister, the Certosa di San Martino, in 1325. Around this time, the Angevins replaced the ancient Norman watchtower near the cloister, with the Castle of Belforte, what ultimately expanded to become Castel Sant'Elmo. The adjacent areas remained largely rural.
Under the Aragonese and subsequently the Spanish, Naples experienced a rapid population increase, due to immigration from the Iberian peninsula and the remaining kingdom. The need to enlarge the city, led Viceroy Pedro Álvarez de Toledo to direct the development of Naples outside its then current boundaries in the flattest area of the city, the present day Centro Storico. Development up the adjacent unsettled hillsides was encouraged. Laws, first in 1556, forbid construction of new buildings immediately around Castel Sant'Elmo — and, in 1583, on the adjacent hillsides.
In the period of the Viceroys following Don Pedro, the building expansion followed, leading innumerable villages and hamlets to merge. Construction on Vomero hill first appeared on maps with the seventeenth century.
During the Naples Plague of 1656, Naples nobility and clergy sought refuge, with the aristocracy establishing second homes in what would become Vomero, a trend that continued during the eighteenth century, especially after development of via Salvator Rosa. Noble families settling in Vomero included the Carafa, the Counts of Acerra, the Ruffo di Sicilia, the Cacciottoli, the Cangiani.
In 1809, a new administrative division of the city of Naples was formed, operated by Joachim Murat, whereby the villages of Vomero became part of the city proper, in the district of the Avvocata. Toward the middle of the 19th century, Ferdinando II commissioned Corso Maria Teresa, establishing the effective lower border of Vomero.
In 1817, Vomero's noble residents were joined by royalty, when Ferdinand I of Bourbon acquired the future Villa Floridiana.
Founding and urbanization
Vomero residential development began in earnest in 1885, with the district's official founding and development of its rectilineal street pattern, punctuated by roundabouts — using a common European urban approach, informed by Baron Haussmann's Paris and the Roman districts of Esquilino and Testaccio. The neighborhood was conceived as an upper-middle class residential neighborhood with large villas and residential buildings, often in late Liberty style, starting near the Villa Floridiana and the area around Castel Sant'Elmo and the San Martino Certosa. The neighborhood would change distinctly in the mid-20th century.In addition, before the law on recovery, a Piedmontese bank, the Banca Tiberina, had purchased land at the Vomero between San Martino, via Belvedere and Antignano, with the intention of building a new neighborhood The laying of the foundation stone by the sovereigns took place on 11 May 1885 and, on 20 October 1889, the new district was inaugurated, with the opening of the Funicular of Chiaia, followed by the Funicolare di Montesanto in 1891.
Until that date, but still for several decades later, life and therefore the history of the Vomerese hill and that of the city of Naples evolved separately. "I go to Naples", "I go down to Naples" were the sentences of the vomeresi to indicate the journey to the center of the city. But, after 11 May 1885, the Vomero slowly began to settle territorially with the city.
The first example of "urban" buildings was the "Four Palaces" in Piazza Vanvitelli, built at the beginning of the 20th century by Banca Tiberina. After the beginning of the works, however, the scarce reactivity of the market pushed the bank to yield in the 1899 its rights to the Bank of Italy. This caused the suspension for several years of the works envisaged by the urbanization plan. At the beginning of the twentieth century, only a part of the buildings in the center of the Vomero were made. All the new buildings were in neo-Renaissance style, which in Naples will last until the first three decades of the twentieth century, dragging the projects of the late nineteenth century through the years.
The Bank of Italy, to recover the capital invested, decided to sell the buildings already built and the land, and split the blocks into smaller lots that could be more easily sold. Consequently, in the early years of the twentieth century there was no impetuous urban development, but less intensive construction of small, two-storey and small-scale villas was built, surrounded by pretty gardens; which, moreover, had the ability to better enhance the landscape aspects of the places, compared to the large Umbertine buildings. The architectural taste that characterized the period, up until the mid-twenties, was that defined liberty together with the so-called neo-eclectic.
The opening of the new Central Funicular, in 1928, facilitating the movement between the Vomero and the center, led to a significant increase in urbanization, which again turned towards the large buildings, also built according to the various styles then in fashion. The new inhabited center expanded to reach the ancient villages, incorporating them.