1.06 Capaccio 1634
Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Il forastiero. Dialogi […] nei quali, oltre a quel che si ragiona dell’origine di Napoli […] si tratta anche de’ re […] sito e corpo della città […] con particolari relationi per la materia politica, Naples 1634
E-NAP 10-2341 raro IV
Il forastiero is a voluminous work by the well-known scholar and poet from Campagna d’Eboli Giulio Cesare Capaccio (1552-1634), dedicated to the Viceroy Count of Monterey. It was printed in 1630 by Giovan Domenico Roncagliolo, but was not distributed until 1634 with the appendix Incendio del Vesuvio, which covered the 1631 eruption. Without illustrations, but with woodcut initials and chapter endings, it is presented in the form of a dialogue between an ‘outsider’ (forastiero) and a ‘citizen’ (cittadino), who describes the history of Naples from antiquity to the Spanish period to the foreigner. The last days are a veritable guide to the city, in which the author also describes the organisation of justice, the ‘foreign nationals’ (habitatori di varie nationi) resident in the city and ‘its houses and unusual things’ (sue case, e cose particolari). The division into ten days and the indication of itineraries to be followed make the Il forastiero a model of reference for later seventeenth-century guides. The 86-page appendix dedicated to the ‘Fire of Vesuvius’ (Incendio del Vesuvio), also in the form of a dialogue, retraces the ‘horrific accident’ (horribilissimo accidente) starting with the description of the site of the volcano and its ancient eruptions, the victims and damage caused, the extraordinary natural phenomena observed, and, finally, the many manifestations of devotion promoted by the civil and religious authorities. [DC]
