Se Ami Nisida, Non Sporcarla

By William D’Alessandro

Click here to see a higher quality version of the image. “Se ami Nisida, non sporcarla”—if you love Nisida, don’t get it dirty. An injunction against sullying public space in the form of a giant graffito is one of Nisida’s many impressive contradictions. This photo was taken on the mainland beach near the Nisida bridge, in the Posillipo quarter north of Naples. The beach is strewn with litter, and the approach lined with derelict buildings and disintegrating fencing, but the island itself is awesomely beautiful. The far side of Nisida features a nature preserve where birds fly free—which is inaccessible by foot, because the near-side entrance is blocked by a detention facility and naval base. All very much in the spirit of Naples, a city of both-and if there ever was one.

Bill D’Alessandro is a postdoc at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy. He grew up in rural western New York—near Niagara Falls and the Canadian border—lived in Chicago for over a decade, and has been in Munich since 2020. Like a typical poorly educated American, he only speaks English, but studied Spanish for a while in school and is slowly picking up some German.