Elena Greco The rione and the stradone
Childhood
The whole childhood unfolds inside one poor neighbourhood on the eastern rim of Naples: a walled estate of 1930s blocks strung along a wide avenue the girls call the stradone, where the two friends first size each other up. Ferrante never names it, but it maps onto the real Rione Luzzatti near Gianturco.
Childhood, The Story of Don Achille
explicit The novel's unnamed rione is Rione Luzzatti, the eastern Naples estate Ferrante has said she drew on; sited at a representative point on its main avenue, the stradone.
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Elena Greco The parish church, Sacra Famiglia
Childhood
The parish church is the fixed point of the neighbourhood's public life, where the children are marched for catechism and where the community's small rituals play out. The rione's real church, the Sacra Famiglia on Via Carlo Bussola, still stands at its heart.
Childhood
explicit The rione's parish church is the real Sacra Famiglia al Rione Luzzatti on Via Carlo Bussola; coordinates from the church's own listing.
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Elena Greco The tunnel under the railway
Childhood
On their first real adventure the two girls dare each other to walk out through the dark tunnel under the railway, meaning to reach the sea, and turn back frightened before they get there. The rione is boxed in by the rail line at Gianturco, and the underpass beside the station is the way out that the scene describes.
Childhood
inferred The novel's tunnel is the railway underpass at the edge of the rione; sited at the verified Napoli Gianturco station, beside which the line and its underpass run, as a representative point.
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