Pandemic-control measures have heavily dented peak sales season on Via San Gregorio Armeno, the Naples street celebrated for its Nativity scenes. REUTERS/Ciro De Luca For One Prized Italian Tradition, Covid-19 Deals Heartbreaking Blow
Artisans clustered along a Naples street have been crafting Nativity scenes for more than a century. But coronavirus restrictions and a dearth of tourists are threatening their survival.
By Dec. 12, 2020 5:35 am ET
NAPLES For generations, the Christmas season has brought throngs of visitors to Via San Gregorio Armeno, a historic street in the heart of Naples where artisans have made the city’s famous handcrafted Nativity scenes since the 1800s.
A mural of Diego Maradona painted in 1990 looks over a small piazza in Quartieri Spagnoli, a working-class district in the heart of Naples. Painted in blocks of flat colour, the Argentinian footballer is shown wearing the sky-blue SSC Napoli football kit, his black, Bacchic hair standing out against the crumbling
tufo stone of the apartment block. Photographs, paintings and posters of the star appear below the mural, the images accumulating from the moment Maradona led the Napoli football club to win two unprecedented league titles – first in 1987 and then in 1990. Since his death on 25 November, this square has become an impromptu site of national mourning.