A journey back in time in the ancient Neapolis to meet the disturbing presences of the underground world of the Complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore.
Saturday January 6 2018, to conclude the Christmas holidays, it will be on stage in the suggestive Monumental Complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore the itinerary theatricalized The ghost of the past Christmas, a show organized by the cultural association NarteA, written and directed by Febo Quercia and performed by Elisabetta Bevilacqua, Mario Di Fonzo, Sergio Del Prete, Fabiana Fazio and Valerio Napoli, assisted by the guides Matteo Borriello, Lina Toscano and Camilla Tripodi.
The ghost of the Natali passed will lead the public in the underground rooms of San Lorenzo Maggiore, where the ancient Neapolis was located, and will make it meet the disturbing presences that live in this world in which the past and present merge, but also Christianity and paganism.
A journey in ancient Neapolis between the Cantata dei Pastori and the Christmas Carol
Febo Quercia was inspired, in fact, by the ideas expressed in the Cantata dei Pastori by Roberto De Simone, which states that Christmas ritual belongs to a pre-Christian ritual cycle, that is the cycle of winter festivals of pagan origin, during which exchanges and relations with the underworld take place. And it is precisely in the period between 8 December and 8 January that, according to this belief, relations between the world of Christianity and paganism intensify, which is why they appear in the crib some disturbing and deformed presences of the demonic world, as figures equipped with dog-headed pastoral sticks, identified by classical iconography as the guardians and guides of souls.
It will be one of these custodians, who has the task of transporting the purging souls from the earth, to present one gallery of ancient characters linked to the past history of Naplesjust like it does the Spirit of the past Christmas told by Dickens in his Christmas song. Viewers will be drawn into this fascinating gash of time, crossing the pit of a well in the buried Neapolis, and will meet historical figures like Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca, Boccaccio and Fiammetta, whose stories are linked in various ways to the Christmas holiday.
