The Dickensian Naples in Vladimiro Bottone's Historical Novel

Introduction

«The historical novel is a novel that has as its setting

a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit,

manners, and social conditions of a past age with

realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some cases

only apparent fidelity) to historical fact» (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia)

The historical novel can be considered the logical result of the awareness of historicism that developed among intellectuals after the French Revolution; therefore, it cannot be considered a genre in its own right that seeks to detach man from the society that surrounds him. Hence, historical writings prior to this period are such because of their setting or the topic they deal with, but they do not take into account at all the psychology of the characters and the surrounding society (Lukacs, 1970). As a matter of fact, the artistic representation seems to give way to History. This is the moment in which the involvement of the society of the period being treated takes over, because, being the backbone of a nation, it thus becomes the result of historical evolution. Undoubtedly, this narrative genre develops mostly in the 19th century, both because the historical facts of this century are strongly determinant and because in this period there is a powerful renaissance of historical and historiographical studies; consequently, the historical novel presents itself as the highest expression of that very society that participated in the evolution of History (Calvino, 1988).

Methodology

In the first part of the twentieth century, the historical novel loses much of its edge; documented narration begins to represent a burden rather than a diorama for the events of the characters, and it lacks what Sergio Romagnoli calls 'patriotic sparks' (Romagnoli, 1968), what Elena Parrini finds in the incipit and in the explicit of Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed): the power of Historia and Story, where the former represents the facts that really happened and the latter the vicissitudes of the characters created by the author (Parrini, 1996). In the second half of the previous century, the historical novel made a comeback, with great Italian names, such as Elsa Morante, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Umberto Eco, and foreign authors, such as Marguerite Yourcenar, Ken Follet, and Ildefonso Falcones, but it was a new type of historical novel, where history merges with noir or fantasy, with thriller or horror, with adventure or love, where documented fact becomes the canvas on which to move real characters and mix them with invented ones, the so-called 'ideal' characters (Lukacs, 1970), in a vortex where it becomes difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to detach history from story.

In Italy, towards the end of the last century of the previous millennium, a young Neapolitan writer, Vladimiro Bottone, tiptoed his way into the milieu of the historical novel. Probably because of his clearly Slavic name that reminds us of the great Russian novelists, or much more probably because of his humanistic studies (he has a degree in Sociology with a thesis in “Cultural Anthropology and the History of Religions”), Bottone, from his very beginnings, has shown a particular predisposition, as well as a marked dedication, to historical narration.

In his books, he commits himself to the reader neither to ignore nor to betray historical reality, but to comply with the facts, to enrich them with details and particulars that are always true and documentable, and to unleash his imagination and fantasy only with regard to certain characters that are skilfully inserted into the reality of the period described and mixed with figures that really existed (Eco, 2000).

Discussion

Gyorgy Lukacs, in his essay Il romanzo storico (The Historical Novel), considers Sir Walter Scott to be the first historical novelist because he is the first to keep intact not only the historical reconstruction, but above all the psychology of the historical period in question (Lukacs, 1970); this is exactly what our author has done since his first novel L'ospite della vita (The Guest of Life) in 1999 (Bottone, 1999), where Giacomo Leopardi, in the last part of his life, wanders through a Naples crushed by cholera and poverty, a poverty that generates despair; and the passage from despair to human abjection is not only rapid, but above all inevitable. The guest of life is Leopardi himself, who cannot be the protagonist of his life, but lives it by looking at its reflection in a mirror. His unstable health does not allow him to enjoy life, as he would gladly do, but forces him merely to intoxicate himself with the tales of his friend Antonio Ranieri, gorging on sweets and Neapolitan ice creams. Leopardi's Neapolitan journey is transformed from a hope for the rehabilitation of his precarious health into a total failure, where Naples, instead of supporting him with its mild climate, like Homeric sirens with the promise of amazing experiences, traps him, luring him into its unhealthy alleys, and swallows him up, chews him up, and digests him (Marcuse, 1974). In one of his feverish deliriums, the poet from Recanati, a guest in his own life, "exiled” to his bed by his illness in an «esilio (che) è un asilo, che ti salva dal mondo»¹ (Bottone), does not want to be cured because by being cured, from a guest he would become 'an ordinary citizen', with an ordinary life. On the contrary, the 'mother' illness has given birth to him again; now he is seen in another light: he almost appreciates his condition and almost redeems the 'stepmotherly nature' of The ginestra (Barthes, 1977).

The story develops around the legend of an untraceable book, written by Virgil and lost in a shipwreck; this mysterious book, however, may be hidden in the well-stocked library of a Neapolitan nobleman, who either really does not know he possesses it or shamelessly pretends to do so, and Leopardi, obsessed by this text, desperately tries to come up with a solution to the mystery, even venturing into rough Neapolitan neighbourhoods to obtain information about it (Croce, 1999). In the novel, we find scattered references to Dante's work, not only because of the presence of Virgil, however tenuous, but above all because of the descriptions of alleyways and characters very close to those of Hell.

In his second novel, Rebis, published in 2002 and reprinted in 2022, we find Vladimiro Bottone, who, through the interweaving of events, conducts an in-depth study of historical and ideal characters, outlines their psychological traits, and finally draws an overall picture of the social environment of the period to represent evolution in a fictional universe involving the space-time correlation of the Bachtinian chronotope (Bachtin, 1997). Like Verga, our author also feels a sense of pity towards the so-called vanquished, but whereas Verga's characters are humble individuals overwhelmed by an invincible fate that leaves no way out (Asor Rosa, 2009), in Rebis, the humble and the beaten are indeed crushed and defeated not by an adverse fate, but by their fellows who are more powerful, richer, and more cunning, and by their own will to prove the truth and not accept being puppets in the hands of those who dominate them. The very title puts the reader on alert: Rebis, res+bis, the double thing, the male and the female; the statue of the Veiled Christ itself is ambiguous: «Eppure se la sfioro, questa membrana traslucida, continuo ad avvertire sotto i polpastrelli un riverbero gelido. È marmo e tessuto. Né marmo né tessuto. Non più marmo non ancora tessuto»² (Bottone, 2022). The novel revolves around the statue of the Veiled Christ found in the Pietatella, better known as the Sansevero Chapel; Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero; Antonio Corradini, sculptor; Giuseppe Sanmartino, sculptor and author of the statue in question (so far, all historical figures); and Jacopo Fucito, secretary to the prince (an ideal character); alongside them moves a whole series of other characters who could be both historical and ideal. The novel tells of Antonio Corradini's death as a murder, probably commissioned, and of the prince's young secretary who tries to shed light on the incident, both out of affection for the elderly sculptor and out of a feeling of devotion towards his young and beautiful wife.

The narrative begins with a description of the feast of Saint Anthony Abbot, which falls on 17^th January. It is 1753, and the bonfires lit in honour of the saint begin to burn across the city, giving it the appearance of a circle from Dante's Inferno: «Un barcone montato sopra un carro (…) sopra un traino di buoi (…) solca maestosamente le strade, fendendo la marea di teste (…) innalza questa statua (...). Ai suoi piedi grufola una nidiata di maialini (…) a lui oggi sacrificate in un’ecatombe di strida inumane»³ (Bottone, 2022); the whole novel is littered with devilish figures who try to steal the souls of naive characters through excessive flattery. There are many more references to Dante, and apart from the various descriptions of settings of decay and despair, we find the symbolism of the number 'three' several times, such as the three phases of alchemy: nigredo, rubedo and albedo (Bottone, 2022); the three chambers of Corradini's secret study; and the three rules to follow: «Silenzio. Occhi aperti e bocca chiusa. »⁴(Bottone 2022).

His ability to interweave historical reality with fantasy does not disappoint in his third novel either, published in 2003, Mozart in viaggio per Napoli (Mozart travelling through Naples); characters from the most disparate social classes meet, clash, and interact, laying bare their souls through meticulous and detailed descriptions, as Gamiani, a character between the shady and the familiar, between the charlatan and the enlightened, an ambiguous character who can be both historical and ideal, brings us back to the concept of 'necessary anachronism' as the eternal dilemma of respecting and altering historical reality (Lukacs, 1979). Certainly, underlying his work is an in-depth study of the socio-historical reality of the period in question, but also a far from superficial knowledge of the geography of the areas covered in this odeporic narrative. Gamiani, after an introductory chapter where he encounters a frightened Mozart, stripped of the bravado that cloaked his aura, especially boyish, easily influenced and deceived, becomes the author's alter ego narrator (Bachtin, 2024). He becomes an analytical observer, capturing the most historically authentic aspects of the society of the period and the most intrinsically explanatory psychology, but he always does so through the filter of an objectivity that may be considered almost journalistic, maintaining the necessary detachment to give an external, super partes view, almost like a god who watches what he has created, first in admiration, then in doubt, and finally in disappointment. The story, through a sort of flashback, tells of Mozart's journey with his father to Naples and their stay in the city, where the young musician meets some of his peers, including a young girl he falls in love with. Here as well, we find descriptions of malodorous alleys and crumbling houses with jungle-like gardens, mellifluous individuals reminiscent of Uriah Heep, beggars, prostitutes and scugnizzi like Jack Dawkins, and, at the centre, a mysterious bottle of rosolio.

We also find an objective representation of environments that may have remained unchanged over time, through vocabulary specifically related to the historical period in question, as is the case in Rebis and in Mozart in viaggio per Napoli with the word 'criado' (Bottone, 2022,2003), a term of Spanish origin used to define someone from a humble family who was reared, brought up, and educated by a nobleman, and who almost always ended up as a secretary and trusted aide to the benefactor.

We wish to focus our attention on the last two historical novels written in the second decade of this century. For our writer, the linguistic problem is the core of each of his works; all his historical novels are set in Naples. We always find an adaptation, not at all forced, of dialogue to the social environment in question, so we find logical, in Vicarìa, the fourth historical novel, the words of the commander of the poor man's hospice, Michele Fiorino, a shady individual: «Vi dovete fottere d’a paura» […]«Secondo voi è talmente impossibile? Basta che uno attacca alla cassa ’e muorto il biglietto sbagliato. Quella è gente che non sa leggere manco il nome suo. Voi che vi pensate: che sono tanti pennaruli?»⁵ (Bottone 2015). By pure chance, a careful and honest policeman discovers that the disappearance of a child from a poorhouse, the “Ospizio dei Poveri” that Neapolitan people also call “Serraglio” or “Reclusorio”, is nothing other than a murder. He begins to investigate, setting off a whirlwind of events that revolve around a scene that shows us Naples in its mixture of extreme poverty and exaggerated wealth. The poverty is that of the poorhouse in the Vicarìa district, a hospice that had started out with the best of intentions, but had become a sort of prison that gathered together orphans abandoned to the famous 'wheel', women who had practised the oldest profession in the world, and old men left to themselves, all run by people totally lacking in scruples. The wealth is that of the Neapolitan bourgeoisie, a bourgeoisie whose hands were sometimes stained with innocent blood. Unlike the two previous novels, set in the second half of the 18th century, Vicarìa is set about a century later, twenty years before the unification of Italy.

The scene often moves to the most disparate places, from prison cells to splendid gardens, from dilapidated 'basses' to aristocratic palaces, from theatres to morgues, all seasoned with historically accurate as well as witty language, with chapters constructed in such a way as to keep the reader tied to the book (Bachtin, 2014). It recalls the structure used by Dickens in the weekly publication of the chapters of his novels. In Vicarìa we find a more mature Vladimiro Bottone, less corrosive and 'polemical', who recounts with greater skill and mastery the society and its behaviour in the historical period of the setting, and we notice this above all through the dialogues that are skilfully used to highlight the salient moments. Literature and History have walked together for centuries, even though it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to define where history ends and literature begins, and vice versa. Both have the purpose of narrating events, whether or not they are contaminated by fantasy or the imagination, but great historians such as George Duby or Carlo Ginzburg have the merit of having approached the analysis of history through lenses that were once the exclusive prerogative of novelists (Duby, 1986; Ginzburg, 2000). The author who is the subject of this study is the narrator of his novels, and he willingly adapts himself to the thinking of the historical period, the social environment, and the psychology of the society in which he places his stories. He always acts in a harshly polite manner—not an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms, but a demonstration of his skill as a narrator even in the most despicable and abject situations—while maintaining a graceful tone, as we see: «I riveriti primari che si litigavano i cadaveri con i medici esterni, vale a dire altri esimi professori bisognosi di corpi da sezionare durante le loro lezioni private di anatomia patologica. Per accaparrarsele, queste spoglie non reclamate da nessuno, era stato addirittura codificato un tariffario delle mance per inservienti della morgue e becchini. Gli ultimi a mettersi in fila, per i reperti avanzati, erano gli studenti e i tirocinanti di Medicina. Come dei cani si contendevano ossa, polmoni, braccia, tronchi di cristiani. I più ricercati erano le femmine e i bambini – si trattava di orfani, ovviamente.⁶ »(Bottone, 2015).

Or, when describing the intimate emotions of the various characters, he lets the influence of Symbolist and Decadent poetics shine through, where the aesthetic ideal, through the linguistic laboratory, overwhelms and stirs the soul of the reader, who stands as if waiting for events to unfold. The quotation below shows how the writer meticulously describes the behaviour of little Antimo, enriching it with details relating to the emotional side: «Una piccola ombra le era corsa incontro, buttandosi in ginocchio. Uno scherzo, una monelleria napoletana? Poi quel corpo minuto le aveva acchiappato – no: rubato – le mani, tempestandole di baci e lacrime. Come se lei fosse un’apparizione. Oppure una giovanissima, raggiante madre inventata e adottata lì, sul momento. Sta di fatto che quel bambino, Antimo, le aveva accarezzato l’orlo della gonna, offrendole l’unica cosa di cui era padrone: le proprie lacrime, deposte ai piedi di lei. Come se Emma fosse una delle bellissime, teatrali Madonne che addobbavano le loro chiese tutte buio e oro. Come se lei, la Signorina, fosse la Vergine in persona capace di intercedere per lui. Di rimettere a lui i suoi debiti, l’enorme debito di essere venuto al mondo.⁷» (Bottone, 2015).

In these two passages, the reflections of the first-person narrator lend themselves to a twofold interpretation, depending on the point of view: the first leads us to a static narrative, that of someone who looks at things from the outside, without any emotional involvement; the second, on the other hand, proves to be dynamic and manifests an emotional involvement of the narrator, who tries to read the stream of consciousness of the characters and tell their story, entering into them in such an extreme way as to become an integral part of them.

Antimo is an Oliver Twist who did not succeed; his Fagin, Catapano, 'sold' him as a traitor to the hospice commandant, Don Florino, and his Nancy, the music teacher Emma, failed to save him from human evil. The dialogical expression of the characters is not only deep, but also rich in nuances designed to portray and enhance their psychology. It is always constructed in such a way as to be clear and comprehensible as well as responsive to the historical period of reference, always respecting the limits of necessary anachronism and maintaining the historical authenticity of the actions of the protagonists, their vocabulary and their psychology (Bachtin, 1997).

Vicarìa, however, does not have a conclusion; it leaves us with an open ending followed by Il giardino degli inglesi (The garden of the Englishmen), which once again sees Commissioner Gioacchino Fiorilli investigating the suspicious movements of the poor people's hospice. Obsessed with the suspicious deaths of the poor and the noble, of Neapolitans and foreigners, the commissioner continues his crusade against evil, fought in the darkness of the alleys, but also in the false light of wealthy mansions and clubs, where evil takes root, sometimes more than elsewhere. In these last two novels, Bottone describes a Naples that is even darker and gloomier, where the sunlight rarely arrives and is often indirect or only touches the walls and windows, neglecting the people; we find a city that is different from the sunny city sung by poets and musicians; we find instead a rainy, humid city, covered by black clouds, a city that grips and hides dark secrets, and the two incipits are already harbingers of terrible stories. Vicaria begins as follows: «Un lampo giallastro, uno schianto. Il fulmine ha spaccato in due il crepuscolo su Napoli. Questa fenditura ha aperto le cateratte. Per i vetturini, i carrettieri neanche il tempo di lanciare i cavalli al trotto e si è scatenato il diluvio. Un cielo fangoso sopra, la terra fangosa sotto. Questo gorgoglio limaccioso dalle colline che incombono sulla città. In un quarto d’ora il nubifragio ha già trasformato i pendii di Capodimonte in un ribollire di acque piovane. Dalla sommità dei Camaldoli iniziano a gonfiarsi, senza più argini, torrenti di pioggia e melma. Da Materdei, da Santa Teresa, dal Cavone queste masse alluvionali precipitano a valle, verso la loro fossa biologica, il loro ricettacolo naturale: Napoli.»⁸ (Bottone, 2015).

The beginning of Il giardino degli inglesi does not deviate much from its predecessor: «Le rampe di Sant’Aniello a Caponapoli nereggiavano in alto, contro il cielo gonfio. I gradoni piatti sembravano intagliati nel fianco di una montagna. Le gocce d’acqua continuavano a picchiettare il viso di Gioacchino Fiorilli, si insinuavano fra il bavero del pastrano e il colletto della sua uniforme. La sua divisa da Commissario di Primo rango presso il quartiere napoletano di San Lorenzo. »⁹ (Bottone, 2016). Commissioner Fiorilli represents the classic 'average hero' (Lukacs, 1970): he is not noble, but neither is he a commoner; he is not an academic, but he is not uncultured either; he is wise enough; he is practical, but basically, he is endowed with great moral dignity and humanity; he does not affirm, but suggests; he does not declare, but deduces; he is a middle-class man who goes unnoticed, an affectionate father and husband, but silent and introverted. His opposite, the so-called 'miserable individual' (Lukacs, 1969), is not a poor man; he is not a man of the lower classes willing to do the most abject things out of hunger and culture, but an exponent of the upper class, Dr Domenico De Consoli, a man who, according to him, does not fear 'solitude, but rather the multitude' (Bottone, 2017) and, unlike the hero, is totally devoid of morals: he is cold, haughty, and opinionated; he uses people as he pleases and completely lacks humanity; his behaviour is dictated by the curiosity to see if he is caught, the curiosity to see how far a man can go to satisfy it, and the curiosity to bet with destiny and see who wins the challenge.

Conclusion

Throughout Bottone's production, we can identify similarities in both narrative themes and linguistic resolution. The recurring themes are the juxtaposition of light and dark, good and evil, wealth and poverty—the latter not only economic, but above all of feelings and spirit—and a reality that hides disturbing secrets in memories and conscience, creating a plot thick with mystery: we recall the suspicious burial of Leopardi, Mozart's bottle of poisoned rosolio, the mystery of the Veiled Christ and the various enigmas of the Sansevero Chapel, and the ambiguity of the poor people's hospice. Regarding linguistic resolution, in all the novels we find examples of 'erlebte Rede', so that the voice of the narrator and that of the protagonists merge and mingle in a masterfully contrived dance to give greater emphasis and pathos to the narrative's salient moments. In describing the individual objects that are typical of the historical picture, the author is extremely precise; many are objects that serve to help us better penetrate the psychology of the characters and the various slices of society they represent, but they never completely influence the reader by directing him to feel a particular sympathy for some victims of society; at most, they stimulate his curiosity about the truth. The masterfully described 19th-century Naples is a city of gloomy hues, a city that hides dangers around every corner, but for this very reason it is all the more fascinating and has nothing to envy in the London of Charles Dickens.

Through his novels, Vladimiro Bottone reveals himself to be a skilful writer, capable of seeing and describing History reflected in his characters and in their feelings, recounting the life and thought of the society of the historical period of the setting, describing the misery of the 'alleys', but also the meanness of the Neapolitan 'palaces'. His mastery in creating the plots and mixing the different social classes, and his sensitivity in entering into the psychology of the various characters, make it seem that he only approaches historical facts as a background without giving an explanation, while we assimilate and study them without consciously realizing the process.

I intend to proceed with my research by comparing Bottone’s books to his last novel Non c’ero mai stato (I had never been there) set in modern Naples.

References