The Wor(l)ds of Neapolitan Arts and Crafts

Book excerpt: This collection of essays investigates the terminology of traditional Neapolitan arts and crafts analyzed from a novel linguistic and cultural perspective. With some exceptions, the trades examined in the contributions—including pizza and pastry making, the art of presepio (crib), lute-making and coral dealing, among others—still exist in Naples and in the Campania region. They represent an important component of the cultural heritage of the area that this volume brings to light by furthering current research in the fields of terminology, history and cultural anthropology. The book is divided into two sections, corresponding to the two languages in which the articles are written (English and French), although the terminological analyses also focus on Italian, Neapolitan and Spanish. This choice is expressly demanded by the political legacy of Naples, which for six centuries was alternately dominated by French, Spanish and Austrian rulers whose lasting influence on the city’s traditions and language the essays explore.