NAPLES, WORK IN PROGRESS: A CITY PICKING UP SPEED AND AIMING INTERNATIONAL

Over the past months, Naples has been changing pace in a way you can actually measure: worksites moving forward, decisions turning into action, and a reputation that’s starting to travel again beyond Italy—through signals that are more frequent and, above all, more visible. The feeling is straightforward: the city is getting itself ready, like someone who knows certain milestones don’t forgive improvisation.

Naples has always had real strength. The kind that doesn’t need a slogan: food culture at its best, a serious restaurant scene, a lively entrepreneurial fabric, and a culture able to remain deeply itself while still speaking a contemporary language. And then there’s a form of wealth that is too often treated as “local color” when it’s actually substance: know-how. From Neapolitan tailoring to craftwork, this isn’t folklore—it’s skill, training, discipline. It deserves a place in Naples’ international narrative with the same dignity we reserve for art, archaeology, and landscape.

In this context, the America’s Cup is a strong signal. Not just an event, but a full rehearsal for reputation, organization, and long-term vision. When a city knows it will host more of the world, time stops being an abstract concept: it becomes a schedule. And, inevitably, a measure of credibility.

I write this as a Tuscan, as a Florentine, and as someone who has followed Naples for more than twenty years. I’ve told its story through articles and photography even in periods when it was flattened—by far too many—into a caricature of stereotypes and shadows. And I’ve watched something important happen again and again: people change their minds after experiencing Naples for real. Naples doesn’t need to be “defended.” It needs to be known. And when a city like this changes pace, it deserves to be acknowledged.

Over the years I’ve also spent a lot of time in the Phlegraean area and in Pozzuoli, building friendships and personal stories that taught me how powerful this territory is—vast, dense, layered with beauty and archaeology. Here the distinction is clear: on one side the Vesuvian axis, with places like Herculaneum and Pompeii—an archaeological landscape carved into ancient history; on the other, the Phlegraean world—Pozzuoli, Bacoli, Cumae, Rione Terra, the Piscina Mirabilis—where nature feels more geological and Mediterranean, made of sea, volcanoes, ruins, and wide horizons. Two distinct universes, both extraordinary, living on the same large map.

That’s why I welcome this moment of momentum: it can bring enormous benefits not only to Naples, but to the whole of Campania. I’ll allow myself one practical wish: that the works around Maschio Angioino (Castel Nuovo) can be completed as soon as possible, within the technical complexities. That part of the city is essential—an anchor of beauty and deep identity—and it deserves to be returned fully to those who live it and those who visit it: accessible, whole, alive.

I write these lines with respect and with genuine happiness. Seeing Naples regain attention, trust, and recognition is a real joy—because it’s simply right.