At Vomero Enzo Di Nocera, manager of a historic bookshop stall, has placed a panaro from which to freely draw books.
"Who can not, take": did you know that in Naples there is also the "panaro" of culture? Along the lines of the famous phrase of the philanthropist Giuseppe Moscati (Who has metta, who does not take), in the Neapolitan capital there are also those who dispenses readings from the well-known basket.
We are in Vomero and he is Enzo Di Nocera, manager of a historic bookshop stall in the crowded via Luca Giordano. Enzo and his niece Vittoria have decided to give books to those who cannot afford them and in front of their long counter, now there since 1979 and where it is impossible not to stop, they put a panaro from which to freely draw books with its own writing "Who can not take".
A bit like, in times of lockdown, the "solidarity panaro" had taken hold to feed the poor, now this other panaro aims at another goal: spread culture.
"Who has metta, who has not take": the solidarity panaro of the popular districts of Naples
“We give away one tide a day, we have reached 200 since we started - tells us Di Nocera, who did not expect such a“ success ”.
52 years old and a bookseller for 44 years, he practically started hanging out with books as a child, “when I was fascinated by the window of a bookshop in the historic center near my grandfather's printing house and there I started working. Since then I have never stopped working on books, except when I went around the world ”.
That's right. Enzo has been around a lot, more than 70 countries to his credit and 5 languages spoken and the desire to open literary cafes left and right.
But it was from his stay in Paris that the idea of opening the shop was born stall-bookshop in via Luca Giordano, in the wake of the historic bouquinistes of the Left Bank. Today, Enzo's stall (beyond that of his family) is a point of reference for the people of Vomeresi and for those who come for a walk in Vomero, but he too suffered first from poor sales in the sector and then from the limits imposed by the measures anti-Covid.
©Germana Carillo
And so it is from here, from their Naples, that Enzo and Vittoria decided to leave again: donating books, those who can, a few volumes taken from stocks, a few “current” or still in circulation books that Enzo himself selects and a few that his old customers or those who wish to donate.
©Germana Carillo
©Germana Carillo
From here (also) we start again, because reading and disseminating readings makes the difference.
Read also:
Books as a gift on the dashboards of parked cars, to fill the city with culture and kindness
Books on the tables outside #ognicasa. The initiative to ask to invest in culture and education
