Paisiello 'e monte, hanging over the sea, there stands Bacchus, a tractor, a cool loggia, who is 'a belvedere', and the owner, a man with all his heart.Affable, friendly and kind, ready to make you welcome, so dear, knock more on friendship than on money, for if you can hear it, it gives great pleasure!
'Na tavulata sott' 'o pergulato,'un cumitiva 'e curazzune allere, toast to health, away 'e pensiero! Cu' 'o vino cchichiù e prelibato, fried 'e pesce fresco, 'e calamare,'nu piatto 'e vermicielle ca' par' oro, e, per' tramente, magne e guarde 'o mare.'Ncopp' 'a 'accordion satiata'nu viecchio still sprightly and crazy plays 'O sole mio, Marenariello, Fenesta vascia, and Dove sta Zazà.
Po' satiated and sudsy he saw 'a Bacco,cu' a cuppulella 'n capa and 'a pippa 'n moccao pullovero, e mmane dint' 'a sacca...Don Rafè, 'chistu cunto v' 'o pagh'io,'o vvulite sape': "Site 'nu Ddio!"
and travelers, the number of guests the enterprising hotelier received also increased and, around the hotel, a small town slowly began to take shape, almost to coagulate. It took a bit of imagination to consider that handful of houses a "village," but to the guest who on a scorching August evening in 1940 happened upon the restaurant with rooms by Ferraioli, imagination was certainly not lacking. It was a very special guest, in fact, the one who had just stepped out of the carriage: Raffaele Viviani (anagrafe Viviano, Castellammare di Stabia 1888 - Naples 1950), the great playwright, poet, writer, composer, humorist, who in his brilliant versatility knew how to reveal himself also as a generous man, close to the simplest people, his real audience, the one whose applause he loved best to win.
The living room
Viviani appreciated to the fullest extent thehospitality received from that innkeeper, his sincere but mellifluous dedication, which expressed so well the character of the old-fashioned peasant world. He dined in the trattoria enjoying the panorama unparalleled on the sea of Ulysses, and then slept in the inn, aided by the generous wine he had been served. In the morning he washed himself with the "semi-current water" that the landlord had invented, and he must have been so impressed by the vaguely unreal atmosphere in that place, which was after all a non-place, that he felt the need to pay his guest a special thanks. So, at the moment of taking his leave, when the innkeeper handed him a register and invited him to affix his signature to it, almost feeling the need to certify that this traveler existed and had indeed stopped at his inn, the idea came to him: no, one signature was not enough. It was too little to celebrate those serene hours of refreshment and rest, and, below the signature, encroaching on the entire page of the register, Viviano wrote in a rush some verses.
In the family
A passion for one's land, for the traditions that have marked and made our identity strong, is passed down through the generations. And so it was in the case of Raffaele, who handed down that guest register from the first half of the 1900s to his grandson, Raffaele Ferraioli junior. A destiny binds Wrath to this surname: because Raphael Jr., mayor by Wrath, a semi-legendary character of the Coast, is the man who actually literally invented that town, even though he himself likes to call it the "town that isn't there": because after all, a little bit, Furore-and it was the great intuition of the Stabiese playwright-is like Peter Pan's island, and to really see it a little bit you also have to know how to imagine it. So when with the simplicity of a smile, after telling me this story, Mayor Ferraioli opened before my eyes the old guest register of the trattoria "Bacchus" of his grandfather, showing me Raffaele Viviani's precious unpublished work for me to divulge, the magic of Furore, "the country that is not there" Has captured us all. My eye fell on the dedication: Furore August 1940. To dearest Fr. Raffaele Ferraioli, magnificent and most hospitable restaurateur, worthy of the splendors of Lucullus, with sympathy, Raffaele Viviani . A hard time was beginning for Viviani, who would die ten years later, and for Naples. The age of dreams was over, and looming over them was the censorship of the regime and the rain of bombs from a hundred air raids. But for an instant we slipped out of time, and it seemed as if Viviani had just written those lines. It is the magic of poetry. It is the magic of Furore. It is the magic of all that we can only see by closing our eyes, and opening our hearts.
