Via Partenope: Land That Did Not Exist

Belgian financier barons Oscar Du Mesnil and Ermanno Du Mesnil took on a contract from the Naples municipality to create land that did not yet exist. In the eighteen sixties, the shore ran along Via Chiatamone, the street behind the present row of buildings. That was where the land ended. Where Via Partenope now stands, there was water, which the Lucians descended to with their boats.

On March fifteenth, eighteen sixty-nine, the redevelopment of the coast between Santa Lucia District and Mergellina was approved. The municipality wanted to connect Santa Lucia District with Piazza Vittoria by a seafront road and obtain plots for a new neighborhood. The Du Mesnil brothers handled the financing and development; in return for the completed works, they were granted the right to build on the new land. Their profit depended on one simple condition: first, the sea had to be pushed back, otherwise there would be nothing to sell or develop.

The contractors extended the land from the old breakwater at Via Chiatamone toward Castel dell'Ovo. They filled in the water behind the new shoreline. The first section was completed by eighteen seventy-two, and the rest, in the direction of Mergellina, by eighteen seventy-eight. The Lucians' former descents to the water ended up inside the neighborhood. Fishermen and boatmen had to find space at the new water's edge, while houses for wealthy residents and visitors appeared along the old shore.

Oscar Du Mesnil made use of the plots he received himself. By what is now number ten, he commissioned a family palace; a guidebook of eighteen eighty-seven already stated that the baron lived here in his own house. In eighteen eighty-two, he also financed the large Hotel Vesuvio on the new waterfront. Hotels, restaurants, and expensive residential buildings appeared here as a result of the contract: the strip of land that had been created was meant to generate income.

The street's name is older than the street itself. Parthenope the Siren was a siren from an ancient legend who tried to destroy Odysseus with her singing. When she failed, she died, and her body, according to legend, was brought to the Neapolitan shore. An early Greek settlement near Pizzofalcone was named after her, and that name was given to the new waterfront.

Palazzo Du Mesnil has survived; it now houses the rector's office of the University of Naples L'Orientale. Hotel Vesuvio is still operating at number forty-five. The old shoreline runs behind them, along Via Chiatamone, while Via Partenope lies on land that the brothers gained the opportunity to develop after their own contract for works at sea.