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In Naples, miracles are generally measured in drops of blood.
Several times a year, crowds flock to the main cathedral of the ancient southern Italian city to admire the dried blood of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, hoping it liquefies — a ritual that many consider a sign of protection for a metropolis shaped by invasions, epidemics and earthquakes.
But in the Rione Sanità, one of the most isolated and neglected neighborhoods of Naples, a quieter, more tangible kind of miracle linked to San Gennaro has unfolded: cultural heritage has been transformed into local jobs, skills and the constant attraction of tourists to the region.
On a weekday winter morning, at the corner of the cafe entrance to the San Gennaro catacombs, Antonio Aveta, 22, and Giada Colasurdo, 20, sat side by side, reading aloud from a historical text about the saint.
They were preparing to guide visitors through a vast underground network of ancient burial chambers that, for centuries, remained largely invisible, even to those who lived directly above them.
The reopening of the catacombs was the first project of La Paranza, a social cooperative founded in 2006 by priest Antonio Alfredo. The name is a Neapolitan term for a fishing crew or close-knit working group.
Over time, the group expanded to include after-school programs and locally run cooperative businesses.
From after-school programs to guided tours
As a child, Aveta participated in La Paranza’s after-school programs. He only visited the catacombs once.
In high school, he got into trouble with the law and eventually realized he needed to straighten out, mainly, he says, because he didn’t want to disappoint his family again.
“I never imagined I could become a historical guide,” he said. “And I think that motivates me, the fact that this ability is so unexpected.”
This trust has already translated into responsibility. Aveta has been guiding visitors through the San Gennaro catacombs for a year and was just hired as one of three new educators to lead the same after-school programs he once participated in.
“Evolved” is how he describes the neighborhood, once synonymous with Camorra clan control, petty crime, poverty and social abandonment.
“I live here 24/7 and have seen how much the catacombs over the last six or seven years have improved things.”
The bridge that created two worlds
His comrade Colasurdo arrived in La Paranza thanks to the Italian civil service volunteer program. Before leaving, she considered leaving Naples. Now she reconsiders.
“During these months I had the opportunity to discover the beauty that the neighborhood offers to the rest of the world,” Colasurdo said.
Colasurdo is from Capodimonte, the richest region that rises just above La Sanità – the name literally means “top of the hill”.
Although separated by a short walking distance, the neighborhoods were bisected by a bridge built in 1810, connecting the Bourbon palaces of Capodimonte, where the city’s former ruling dynasty lived, to the historic center.
“If you live in the area, there are two worlds: one above the bridge and one below,” said Antonio Della Corte, 37, a longtime resident who has been part of the cooperative for nearly two decades and now trains new guides like Aveta and Colasurdo.
“Before, if you lived in Sanità, you simply said: “I come from the historic center”, never “I come from Sanità”. It was like the worst possible business card.
The cooperative’s approach to using local culture to generate local profits extends beyond the catacombs.
Just down the street, Locanda del Monacone, a restaurant from the cooperative, offers training and stable work to around twenty young people.
At lunchtime, waiters crowd tables with steaming plates of traditional Neapolitan dishes like pasta alla Genovese, a simmered onion and beef sauce, and salsiccia e friarielli, local sausages served with bitter wild vegetables.
“It’s about keeping the children who grew up in the Sanità proud to stay there,” said Giuseppe Iacarino, the restaurant’s director, who started by doing maintenance work in the catacombs 15 years ago.
“Giving them skills and decent jobs in the neighborhood, and offering the authentic Naples to visitors.”
A fragile transformation
This approach contrasts with that of a city struggling with overtourism.
After decades of being treated as an unsavory stopover on the way to Pompeii, Naples has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing destinations, fueled by cheaper flights, online bookings and falling crime.
The boom is creating jobs and generating buzz around its authenticity. But it has also led to an increase in short-term rentals that are pushing locals out. Family-run greengrocers, cobblers and tailors quickly give way to limoncello shops and stalls selling ’80s soccer superstar Diego Maradona paraphernalia and tourist trinkets.
“La Paranza’s tourism development model can help slow down this type of change,” said Anna Fava, who heads the Neapolitan section of Italia Nostra, a national heritage protection organization.
“But only if the government caps rents in the short term. Without hard limits, rents climb and outside investors move in – it becomes an unregulated free-for-all.”
Della Corte says he is lucid about the risks.
“Obviously we need to control growth and not destroy authentic Naples,” he said. “For now, we are experiencing the benefits of tourism, but we are aware of the dangers.”
While youth unemployment remains high, tourism has created opportunities. But without regulation, he warns, it could destroy the very communities that made the city attractive in the first place.
“We have to anchor people in the territory,” he says. “Wanting to stay, not leaving. »
La Paranza now extends beyond La Sanità. Through a new foundation, Napoli Centro, and a project called Mood, the cooperative is partnering with the Archdiocese of Naples to reopen 10 churches in the historic center, each led by young people from surrounding neighborhoods.
Twenty years ago, taxi drivers refused to take their customers to the Sanità because it was considered too dangerous. Today there is a fixed fare from Naples Central Station. Della Corte sees this as proof that the transformation is real, but fragile.
“It’s not the only solution, but it’s one approach,” he said. “A way to maintain the social value and the economic value here, through the people who live here.”
