Napoli e la Campania nelle Lettres familières sur l’Italie di Charles de Brosses

The Lettres familières sur l’Italie by Charles de Brosses (1709-1777), member and then president of the Parliament of Burgundy, historian, antiquarian and linguist, are the detailed relation of his year’s journey (between 1739 and 1740) across Italy, made with his Genevan friends, and published only posthumously: first (with spurious trips) by Antoine Sérieys in 1799, then with gradually increasing fidelity to the manuscripts by Romain Colomb (1836) and Yvonne Bezard (1931); finally restored in a form closer to the original by Letizia Norci Cagiano de Azevedo and Giuseppina Cafasso (1991). The article focuses on the letters that de Brosses concerning Naples and its surroundings, which show the multiplicity of his interests, supported by the refined taste of an art lover, enthusiast of the ancient (the Lettre sur la ville d’Hercolanum, nr. XXXIII, to the President Bouhier, is one of the first documents on the excavations in progress), but also curious of the present, as evidenced by the continuous openings on reality, social practices, men, performances. It’s a lively and unconventional portrait, in direct, of great interest also from the narrative point of view, crossed by a constant ironic vein, that profoundly changes the perception of our country ompared to the travel reports of the previous century (with which, however, de Brosses compares himself expressly) and that will influence French travelers of the nineteenth century, beginning with Stendhal.