Friends of Naples is happy to be contributing to the project ”You are here Vico Pero / Giacomo Leopardi / Inhabiting Artist Project by Eugenio Giliberti” dedicated to the Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi, and to Naples where he  resided the last years of his life. This public project is organised in collaboration with the National Center for Leopardian Studies (Recanati) by the following organisations: Donnaregina Foundation for Contemporary Arts – Madre Museum, Morra Foundation, Dafna Gallery and Intragallery, the National Library of Naples, the Municipality of Naples, the Third Municipality of Naples, the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, the departments of Architecture of the Federico II and Luigi Vanvitelli Universities, and the Naples ACEN Building Builders Association.

Giacomo Leopardi and his small court of his Neapolitan friends Antonio and Paolina Ranieri and the patriot chef Pasquale Ignarra, moved into Vico Pero between the 4^th and 9^th of May 1835. This was Leopardi’s last residence – his favorite – where he lived the longest of his three Neapolitan residences. Contrary to what many believe, it was in Giuseppe Ferrigni’s house in Vico Pero, and not in the villa of Torre del Greco, where Leopardi died of dropsy on June 14, 1837, while a terrible cholera epidemic was raging in the city.

By turning public attention on the urban triangle between Vico Pero, Vico Noce and Vico Cimitile at Santa Teresa, now called “Vicolo Paese”, the aim of the project is to bring the inhabitants closer to their history as its proud guardians and to treat it as if it were their own family history. The project unfolds in different stages, one of which will be the transformation of the modest building in no. 2 Vico Pero into an imposing artistic installation on the entire facade of the building in Via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi where numerous Neapolitans and tourists pass by each day to reach the royal palace and museum Capodimonte.