Market Day, and a visit to the Galerie d’Italia…and Caravaggio.
November 11, 2025
I only managed to keep up the detailed journal for five days or so. I think it was functioning as a way of acclimatizing to the disorientation of jetlag and being in such a different place, as well as all we’d been through just before coming here. Then, after such a bad night, we took that astonishing trip to Herculaneum, and after that everything fell into place: I ended up loving Naples, loving the food and the energy and life that pulsate here from early morning until late at night. Loving the color and the light, and the beautiful time we were having together. So, to continue:
On Sunday, November 9, we had a late start, and on our way to the metro discovered that it was market day in Piazza Dante, so we changed plans and I bought food while J. took pictures. We took our purchases back to the apartment and I cooked the fresh porcini mushrooms I’d bought for our lunch.
Part of Via Toledo, a main shopping street in the old part of Naples, becomes pedestrian at certain times (which we never quite figured out). On Sunday afternoon it was very busy, with many people out shopping, eating, or just taking a stroll. We enjoyed seeing men arm-in-arm with other men who were clearly just friends of theirs, not partners, and people who had obviously carefully dressed for their walk. I hadn’t expected to see “fashion” in Naples the way you would expect in Milan or Rome, but there’s everything here from the most casual to the most put-together, confident, and very beautiful Italian style. If I ever come again, I’m bringing an empty suitcase and heading for the vintage shops, which I did peruse, but ruefully left empty-handed because there was no room in my carry-on.
In the afternoon I went alone to the Galerie d’Italia, not far away on Via Toledo, to see their collection which traces Neapolitan painting through the centuries, and has several very important holdings including one of Caravaggio’s final works. It was very difficult to photograph in their galleries — there was a lot of glare. Here are a few works that stood out for me.
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (Battistello), The Holy Family, 1610-1620.
Gaspar Adriaenz Wittel, View of Naples from Posillipo with Vesuvius in Eruption, 1730.
Antonio Mancini, Landscape, 1880 — moving toward Italian impressionism. The brushwork in this small painting was exquisite.
Two rooms were devoted to the work of Vincenzo Gemito, a sculptor who lived from 1852-1929 and is credited with modernizing the art of sculpture, especially portraiture, in this region of Italy. He was a superb draftsman and I spent a long time admiring his drawings that were displayed. Here are some of his self-portraits.
I was sad to read, later, that Gemito’s life was punctuated by periods of mental instability that prevented him from working. What beautiful work he produced during the rest of the time!
The collection culminates with its two most valuable and famous holdings. First, Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting of Delilah about to cut the hair of Samson, thereby taking away his power. It’s a large canvas and very beautiful, especially the lavender-pink of Delilah’s dress in contrast with her red hair.
Detail, Artemisia Gentileschi, Delilah and Samson.
But perpendicular to it, on the far wall, is Caravaggio’s The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. Nothing prepared me for the impact this painting had on me.
The painting is photographic in the way it captures a moment in time: the arrow has just been released by the spurned Hun who wishes to marry Ursula, and it has entered her heart.
Ursula looks down in astonishment at the still-quivering arrow; already the color has drained completely from her flesh. An outstretched hand, trying to protect her, is too late. Behind her, mouth open, Caravaggio has painted himself — should we see him here as a horrified witness who can do nothing, or a tormented man haunted by thoughts of his own possible execution?
Even though the painting is not in the best condition, and even though the painter has compressed and angled the figures more than would have been possible for the shot to arrive at that point-blank angle, its power created a strong visceral reaction. For a moment, I actually felt faint, and my heart pounded. Then I settled down, and stayed in front of the canvas for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying to look at every part.
This was one of the very last, if not the last, paintings that Caravaggio made, about a month before his death from a malarial fever. Fortunately it was not one of the canvases he had rolled and put in the small boat that sailed without him and apparently never arrived. I will write more later about this and the other Caravaggio paintings I saw. My reaction to Saint Ursula felt very much the same as the open-mouthed self-portrait Caravaggio had painted into his canvas, but included awe at the skill of the painter, and a heightened awareness of the raw, personal experience of violence, sorrow, and death he must have had to be able to express them in his works — this one in particular.
On Monday, we finally went to Pompeii.
—to be continued