Beneath Naples: The Military Tunnel Ferdinand II Never Finished
The Galleria Borbonica is an underground cavity in Naples extending beneath the hill of Pizzofalcone, near the Royal Palace, in the San Ferdinando district. On 19 February 1853, Ferdinand II of Bourbon issued a decree commissioning architect Errico Alvino to construct a long underground tunnel connecting Largo della Reggia (present-day Piazza Plebiscito) to Piazza della Vittoria, passing beneath the hill of Pizzofalcone. An earlier idea for a tunnel under the same hill had been drawn up by architect Antonio Niccolini around 1850, but had produced no concrete outcomes.
The project formed part of the broader programme of public works promoted by Ferdinand II; its primary purpose was, however, military. The tunnel was intended to serve as a rapid escape route to the sea for the royal family in the event of civil unrest, and as a fast connection between the palace and the troops stationed in the Chiaia barracks, the Caserma della Vittoria and the Caserma della Cavallerizza. The concern was not without precedent: in 1647, during the Revolt of Masaniello, the Spanish Viceroy had nearly been trapped in the Royal Palace and escaped only by chance through a nearby convent.
Construction
Alvino designed a two-lane tunnel with sidewalks on either side. The western exit opened onto Via della Pace (present-day Via Morelli, also opened in 1853 by Alvino himself), directly in front of the Caserma della Vittoria; the eastern exit was to emerge near present-day Piazza Carolina, behind the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola. The tunnel was to be named Galleria Reale, with the two lanes carrying royal names: Strada Regia toward Chiaia, and Strada Regina in the opposite direction.
Excavation began in April 1853, proceeding from west to east. In the course of digging, the tunnel intersected a network of passages and cisterns belonging to the ancient aqueduct built by the nobleman Cesare Carmignano between 1627 and 1629. The Carafa quarries were also encountered a short distance from the start of the excavation. Further complications arose from the irregular morphology of the Pizzofalcone hill and the presence, in certain sections, of unconsolidated volcanic ash rather than solid rock. These factors forced Alvino to revise the original plans on several occasions.
The excavation was completed by 1855, after various interruptions, and the tunnel was inaugurated by the king on 25 May of that year. Ferdinand II was particularly impressed by Alvino’s solution of bridging two active aqueduct cisterns by constructing two separate underground bridges, a feat considered a landmark of nineteenth-century European engineering. The tunnel remained open to the public for three days, with visitors unaware of its military purpose. The excavation was never fully completed, however; it stopped short of its eastern terminus near Piazza Carolina due to morphological obstacles encountered in the final stretch.
The death of Ferdinand II in 1859, and the political upheaval that struck his successor Francis II of the Two Sicilies leading to the unification of Italy, prevented any resumption of the work.
World War II
After decades of abandonment, the tunnel and a number of adjacent underground spaces were fitted out as an anti-aircraft shelter by the military engineering corps during the Second World War, between 1939 and 1945. The spaces were electrified and equipped with cots, cooking implements, and latrines, as the civilian population could be required to remain underground for days at a time. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Neapolitans took refuge there, many of whom had lost their homes in the bombings carried out by both Allied and German forces.
Post-war history
In the post-war decades, the tunnel was repurposed as a municipal judicial depository and used to store confiscated and impounded motorcycles, vehicles, and various other materials until the 1970s. Residents of the buildings above had by then also begun to use the old quarry spaces as illegal dumps, disposing of refuse through wells and unauthorised openings. In the 1980s, the Carafa quarries were converted into a car park, and during excavations for the Linea Tranviaria Rapida in Piazza del Plebiscito the tunnel was accidentally breached, requiring the replanning of the underground works; stabilising materials were subsequently injected into the cavities.
Rediscovery and opening
From 2005 the structure came to the attention of geologists, who inspected it on behalf of the Government Commissioner for Subsoil Emergencies. Further spaces were rediscovered in 2007, and after extensive excavation and structural consolidation carried out entirely by volunteers with no public funding, the site was opened to the public by the Associazione Culturale Borbonica Sotterranea on 29 October 2010.
Among the objects recovered during the clearance works were vintage cars and motorcycles, and the remains of a monumental sculpture dedicated to Aurelio Padovani, an early Fascist official and prominent figure of Neapolitan fascism. The monument, discovered in March 2010 beneath debris, had been inaugurated in Piazza Santa Maria degli Angeli at Pizzofalcone in 1934; it was designed by architect Marcello Canino and sculpted by Carlo de Veroli with the collaboration of Guglielmo Roehrssen. The square had taken Padovani’s name at the time of the inauguration. In the post-war period, as part of the broader removal of Fascist symbols from Italian public space, the monument was dismantled and the original place name restored.
In September 2013 a second, larger multi-level anti-aircraft shelter was discovered beneath the Pizzofalcone hill near Palazzo Serra di Cassano; after restoration, this section was opened to the public on 30 January 2016. The gallery today has three access points: via Domenico Morelli (inside the Morelli car park, near Piazza dei Martiri); Vico del Grottone, near Piazza del Plebiscito; and Palazzo Serra di Cassano.
Source: Wikipedia (Italian) — Galleria Borbonica
SOURCE: Wikipedia, Galleria Borbonica
IMAGES: Vittorio Sciosia
Topic: Catacombs of Naples,Galleria Borbonica, Tunnel Borbonico,Naples,Bourbon Tunnel,underground tunnels,Campania
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