The enthusiasm with which we launch Poliorama is accompanied by a profound sense of responsibility — the awareness of taking up the legacy of its historical nineteenth-century predecessor, whose pages offered, with a remarkably “modern” gaze, a vivid reflection of the extraordinary cultural vitality that animated Naples during that era.
The creation of a journal marks a new chapter for Turchini Edizioni, the publishing arm of the Fondazione Pietà de’ Turchini, which for over twenty years has been actively engaged in the field of international musicological research. This new step has been made possible thanks to the determination of two young and highly motivated musicologists, Sara Amoresano and Lorenzo Corrado, and has taken shape under the scientific guidance of Paologiovanni Maione, a “Maestro” whose collaboration has accompanied the Foundation’s musical and scholarly journey since its inception.
The original Poliorama had a significant impact on the Neapolitan and Italian musical and cultural scene, contributing to the dissemination of musical knowledge and the cultivation of an informed and discerning mode of listening. This is precisely the mission that Turchini Edizioni continues to pursue with conviction — fostering dialogue, convergence, and constructive debate among experts from diverse disciplines, all united by a shared focus on Naples as a dynamic and uniquely creative center in the global landscape of musical and cultural production.
Equally new is the chronological horizon toward which the Fondazione Pietà de’ Turchini now turns its attention. We are convinced that the Neapolitan nineteenth century remains an underestimated period — one too often flattened in its complexity, with its contrasts and colors subdued. Yet it was precisely this tension, born from the encounter between the astonishing legacy of the Baroque age and the revolutionary and innovative impulses of a century marked by profound political, social, scientific, and cultural transformation, that defined one of the most fascinating chapters in Naples’s musical history.
