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Naples in the 1600s
It was the best of times
It was worse than the worst of times
 The
decline of the
Spanish Empire from the loss of the Armada (1588) through the entire
1600s to
its ultimate demise in 1700 with the death of Charles II is complex.
Some of
the factors (besides the original loss of the Armada and subsequent
loss of
naval dominance) were Spain's continuing wars with the French, English
and the
Dutch in the early 1600s, her involvement in the Thirty Years War
(resulting in
a disastrous defeat in 1643 at the battle of Rocroy), and, most
of all,
her terrible mismanagement of wealth from the New World.
As
a Spanish vice-realm, Naples might have been expected to
follow a parallel decline. For various reasons (one of which was the
simple
geographical distance from the battlefields of the Thirty Years War)
that was
not the case. The year 1600 marks the beginning of what is often called
a
"Golden Age" in the history of Naples. The city had been transformed
in the mid-1500s into a modern city, the best defended and largest
port
city in
the Spanish Empire, the second largest city in Europe (after
Paris)—essentially
being primed for just such a period of greatness. In 1600 the
cornerstone of Domenico Fontana's great Royal Palace (illustration,
above) was
laid; in 1605 the first Spanish
villa went up along the Chiaia, opening the western part of the
city to
an
incredible building boom of luxurious estates; churches and public
buildings
went up; and the first public theaters and opera houses were built. The
list of
those living and working in Naples for much of the century reads like a
Who's
Who of Baroque genius in various endeavours from architecture to art,
music and
philosophy: Domenico Fontana, Caravaggio,
Luca Giordano, Carlo
Gesualdo, Giambattista Vico, etc.
The most important social/political event of
the
century—and, indeed, a reflection of the profound problems affecting
Spain,
herself, was The Revolt of Masaniello,
but, by and large, the destiny
of Naples in what might have been a "Golden Age" was shaped not by
corruption, upper-class sloth or mismanagement of money, but by
staggering
natural calamities and pestilence.
 In
1631, Mt. Vesuvius gave vent to a powerful eruption.
By all accounts, it was a highly explosive
event that rivalled in intensity the famous eruption
that doomed Pompeii and Herculaneum
in the first century
a.d.
Sources say that the eruption destroyed most of the towns in the area
of Vesuvius.
The event was so terrifying that it stoked the creative imaginations of
the
great painters of the day, primarily Micco
Spadaro (name in art of Domenico
Gargiulo, 1610-75). His "Eruption of Vesuvius in 1631"
(painting,
right)
shows the
procession of the populace, viceroy, church prelates and aristocracy.
They
carry the bust of the Patron Saint, Gennaro, in a show of penitence,
invoking
divine mercy.
Two major earthquakes struck the kingdom of
Naples in the
1600s. The quake of 1660 destroyed many towns and villages in Calabria.
Closer
in to the city—right in the city, to be exact—the earthquake on June 5,
1688,
was frightful. People camped out for many days near the Chiaia beach
and in the
open market squares and near the Maschio
Angioino. Due to the risk of buildings
collapsing, streets were blocked
off, and the city could be crossed only by small carts.
The worst
disaster to strike the kingdom and
city of Naples
in the 1600s was the plague of 1656. The
Black Death, of course already
had a
long and inglorious history in Europe, going back to the original
European
outbreak in 1347 (presumably traced to China in the 1330s). The
population of
Europe dropped from 75 million before that outbreak to 50 million
afterwards —truly "apocalyptic" in the minds of many chroniclers of
the day.
 Subsequent
outbreaks have not been that devastating, but even "lesser" outbreaks
can have severe repercussions on the life of a nation. The outbreak of
the
disease in Naples occurred in January of 1656 when a Spanish soldier
who had
arrived from Sardinia, was admitted to the Annunziata
hospital. The
alarm was
sounded by Dr. Giuseppe Bozzutto,
who first diagnosed the symptoms. His
promptness was not appreciated by the viceroy's government, which
decided to
imprison the doctor for having spread the news. The plague, however,
can quickly
spread its own brand of news. When bodies started piling up, when
provisions
ran low, when people started fleeing the city, the government was
forced to
admit the outbreak.That was in May. By August,
the plague had run its course.
It had killed about half the city's 300,000 inhabitants and at least
that many
again in the rest of the kingdom.
The
economic and social effects are obvious: even the people who survived
fled the city. No
one worked. Even in the countryside, people fled elsewhere; farms went
unattended. Law enforcement, in general, was ineffective, and
lawlessness
spread. Again, Spadaro was on the scene to survive and paint (above) an
utterly soul-chilling scene of the Mercatello (the square that is now Piazza
Dante). It is truly a scene from Hell. The city of Naples would
take
almost two centuries to climb back to
its pre-plague population.
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(There is a further article on this website
dealing with the 17th century in Naples.
See "The Spanish Viceroyalty--The Second
Hundred Years" by David Taylor.
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