Is Naples on the brink of a new future?

The man whose home is adorned with a mural of Diego Maradona says Napoli’s Serie A title triumph symbolises the city’s resurgence

At 10.37pm on 4 May, the man who lives in Diego Maradona’s head threw open the window of his flat in the Spanish Quarter district in Naples for the first time in months, erupting in a cathartic scream as the city celebrated another moment in its rebirth.

Ciro Maiello, a 50-year-old pork butcher, moved to the apartment block featuring a giant mural of the Argentinian in 2006 and lived there through a period he called the “dark days [when] dozens of people were killed in these streets”. The mural was painted a few years earlier, in honour of the player who gave the city’s football team the most successful period in its history, including its first Serie A title win, and whose veneration by Neapolitans is comparable only to that of its patron saint, Gennaro.

The shutters on Maiello’s bathroom window correspond with the champion’s head and, out of respect, he kept them shut – until, that is, that night last month when Napoli won their first Serie A title in 33 years. Tearful, he opened his window and looked out upon a thronged square as delirious, nightlong celebrations erupted across the city.

“It was indescribable!” Maiello recalled. “This is the victory of an entire city that after decades in the dark is finally being reborn.”

Long derided by Italy’s northern powerhouses, today Naples is experiencing a golden age. Italy’s national statistics agency forecasts its gross domestic product in 2023 could reach an all-time record. The city has reclaimed its squares from car traffic and dozens of monuments recently restored to their former glory are attracting throngs of tourists.

Arrivals at the airport were up 30% in the first three months of the year and many have queued to visit the Maradona mural, overlooking a square that has become a place of pilgrimage, with photos of the Argentinian player, T-shirts and an altar.

The Spanish Quarter mural was painted at the time of the second Napoli Serie A win in 1990 by a local artist Mario Filardi, who died in 2010. However, after a few years, the artwork fell into decay, ruined by the elements as the square was submerged in rubbish.

Until a few years ago, the area was targeted by thieves and off limits for tourists. Gradually, many of the shopkeepers left.

“Then, suddenly, something incredible happened,” said the chronicler of the city and author of Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano. “We began to talk about the city’s problems and, by recounting its contradictions, Naples emerged from its isolation, with all its beauty. That’s why that mural is the symbol of the city. Because it too, faded and ruined, suddenly returned more beautiful.”

The revival of the mural by a local artist began in 2016. When Maradona died in 2020, a long pilgrimage of fans transformed the square beneath into an open-air church. Dozens of bars and restaurants have reopened in the Spanish Quarter and many of the empty houses turned into B&Bs, making the neighbourhood one of the main tourist spots and popular with students.

“The mafia is still strong in the area,” Saviano said. “But the presence of these businesses has made the neighbourhood safer.”

The city still has a long way to go, however. Young people struggle to find jobs and the suburbs, and their citizens, remain poor.

“Behind the economic growth of Naples there are still many problems,” said Giovanni Zoppoli, a founder of the Mammut centre in the deprived suburb of Scampia, which seeks to fight urban decay through culture. “But change, albeit slow, can also be seen here.”

If you ask Neapolitans, some will say this too is a miracle by Maradona. “Maradona represented the redemption of this city,” said Saviano. “With him, Neapolitans had something they felt proud of.”