ODE TO NAPOLI

ABOUT THE DESIGN

 

Romantic poet John Keats, on his final voyage to Rome in search of a cure for his ailing health, spent two of his remaining weeks on earth quarantined on board a ship in the bay of Napoli. During that  same year, Percy Bysshe Shelly, another poet wrote the poem, "Ode to Naples", a response to the proclamation of a Constitutional Government in Napoli. 

 

Napoli, a city caught between the grips of life and death - perched on the edge of Vesuvius - a city with a tantalizing history of wars, kings, paupers, and poetry. The warring mystery that enshrouds and envelops this brightly-adorned metropolis never ceases to surprise those who step into it. 

 

This pocket square imagines Shelley, writing his poem overlooking the Napoli bay, where rests John Keat's ship. It ties together imagery from il Maschio Angioino, Santa Caterina, the painting "The Bay of Naples" by William James Muller, the painting, "The View of Naples", by Caspar Andriaans van Wittel and other imagery inspired by local Napoli scenery and motifs. 

 

-Daniele + Kate