It’s a common cliché, both among Neapolitans and tourists, to say that Naples is the realm of the sacred and profane. This is a definition I don’t really like; it’s a bit like rhetorically associating the city exclusively with the sun and the sea, when one should understand that its richness is almost always hidden in the shadows. 

My passion for the discovery of Naples’s less-unveiled charm was born many years ago, when I lived on the edge of Piazza Mercato. It was 2007, when the city declared a “garbage emergency” for the trash that accumulated in the streets of Naples and surrounding areas, a result of inadequate waste management infrastructure and political corruption, as well as organized crime involvement.