The Bourbon Tunnel—or—

 "Quick, your majesty! Into the sewer!"

"I'll see you in the tunnel!"

It sounds like something out of Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel: the swish and rustle of ballroom finery, swordplay and the shouts of revolutionaries running through the night, thrusting their flickering torches into any cubby-hole that might shelter a cowering nobleman; then, the storming of the royal palace, at which point the king turns the trick candelabrum lever in the library to move the wall panel and flees into the secret passage and away to a ship that takes him into exile forever. Whew. Sob. It didn't turn out that way in Naples, but I wish it had. That's much better than Garibaldi's army just kicking down the damned door and marching in. (Actually, in September of 1860, Garibaldi took the train (!) for the last seven miles into the city and was greeted by a cheering throng.)

On February 19, 1853, King Ferdinand II of Bourbon, signed a decree that gave to architect Errico Alvino the task of building an underground passageway under Mt. Echia (Pizzofalcone) to connect the Royal Palace with Piazza Vittoria. (Thus, the tunnel would bore beneath the cliff upon which stood the acropolis of the original Greek city of Parthenope, well before "Neapolis"—Naples.) This was not meant for pleasurable strolls in the Bat Cave for the royal family or anything of such a social nature. The tunnel was strictly military: it was meant to bring in troops to protect the Royal Palace, if necessary; these troops were garrisoned on the other side of Pizzofalcone near Piazza Vittoria at via Pace (now via Domenico Morelli) in quarters at Ferrantina square and at San Pasquale di Chiaia. The tunnel would also provide an escape route for the royal family. (What would happen if the troops running in ran into the kings and queens running out? I don't know.)

The work was started immediately and then interrupted in 1855 for technical reasons as well as the fact the revolutionary turmoil was moving faster than the people with shovels. The entire kingdom was about to be engulfed in a war to resist Garibaldi and subsequent incorporation into a united Italy—a war that the Bourbons ultimately lost.

The end of the tunnel at via Domenico Morelli had the advantage of some "starter" caves to work with. These had actually been quarries used to provide blocks of tuff rock for the many Spanish villas and churches that sprang up in the 1500s and 1600s in the area. Thus, one finds inscribed dedications from as early as 1512 of a villa belonging to one Andrea Carafa, count of San Severino, and, from 1588, the quarry that provided material for the church of the Nunziatella (converted into the Bourbon military academy in 1787).

In spite of the advantages of pre-dug cavities in the area, 1855 builders started running into enormous difficulties due to the large number of cisterns and aqueducts still in use at the time below the surface, things that you could not simply dig through without interrupting (or even destroying) the water supply of tens of thousands of inhabitants in the area.

The tunnel was left in an unfinished state—that is, without an exit near the royal palace, until 1939, when the Fascist government decided to convert it into an air raid shelter. The entrance was on the north side of Piazza Plebiscito from the building that now houses the Naples prefecture. After the war, the entrance was covered and forgotten about until 1968, when local urban spelunker Clemente Esposito (head of the organization called Napoli Underground) uncovered it. The numbers are impressive: the original Bourbon tunnels plus the earlier Spanish quarries plus the aqueducts converted to air raid shelters (possible only after the new Naples aqueduct in the late 1800s had made them no longer necessary ) come out to 10,000 square meters (that is, 10 sq. km or six square miles).

Until the 1970s the underground area was used as a "Municipal Deposit." What that really meant was a place to dump the enormous amounts of wartime rubble. This includes not just the bricks of bombed-out buildings, but cars, motorcycles, old refrigerators, statues, and, generally speaking, accumulated broken bits and pieces of centuries of Naples. An exhibition about the tunnel was put on at the Castel dell'Ovo a number of years ago. One awaits further news of some final disposition of this latest addition to what Neapolitans now call "the other city," by which they mean the 700 (!) quarries and many miles of ancient passageways beneath the surface.

-----------------------------

I am indebted to Clemente Esposito and his article "Il Tunnel Borbonico" on the website of Napoli Underground, by whose kind concession the above photo of the tunnel also appears on this page.

(Also see Proud to be a Troglodyte!, Caves, and The Cavern of Mithra)