Castello dell’Ovo, Naples
It was built in 1484 by Ferdinand I, but during Masaniello’s little disturbance it became a stronghold of the people. To-day it serves as a barracks—and of course as a military prison; all nondescript buildings in Italy may be safely classed as military prisons, though indeed the Italian soldiery do not look an unruly lot.
It is well to recall here that Masaniello, who gave his name to an opera as well as being a patriot of the most rabid, though revolutionary, type, failed of his ambition and died through sheer inability to keep awake and sufficiently free from anxiety to carry out his plans. Masaniello lost his head toward the end and got untrustworthy, but this was far from justifying either his murder or the infamous treatment of his body immediately after death by the very mob that the day before had adored him. His headless trunk was dragged for several hours through the mud, and was flung at nightfall, like the body of a mad dog, into the city ditch. Next day, through a revulsion of feeling, he was canonized! His corpse was picked out of the ditch, arrayed in royal robes, and buried magnificently in the cathedral. His fisherman’s dress was rent into shreds to be preserved by the crowd as relics; the door of his hut was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and cut into small pieces to be carved into images and made into caskets; while the very ground he had walked on was collected in small phials and sold for its weight in gold to be worn next the heart as an amulet.
The “Villas” of Naples are often mere maisons bourgeoises of modern date. Many of them might well be in Brixton so far as their architectural charms go.
Over in the Posilippo quarter, a delightful situation indeed, are innumerable flat-topped, whitewashed villas, so-called, entirely unlovely, all things considered. One of these, the Villa Rendel, was once inhabited by Garibaldi, as a tablet on its wall announces.
Garibaldi and the part that he and his red shirt played are not yet forgotten. Apropos of this there is a famous lawsuit still in the Italian courts, wherein the Garibaldian Colonel Cornacci, in accord with Ricciotti Garibaldi, son of the general, makes the following claim against the Italian government: