The serenaders

Serenata d’’e marenare – 1901

I’ te vurria vasà!… – 1900

Maria, Marì! – 1899

Serenata palazzola – 1903

Canzona bella – 1904

“And then comes Sunday to dress up, primp, beautify oneself, put on the best one has […] and wait for the serenade.”

— Francesco De Bourcard

The serenade is a recurring presence in the life and imagination of nineteenth-century Naples, a custom awaited during moments of celebration and popular socializing.

The serenader does not have a specific costume: in representations, his attire rather reflects the male dress of the era. De Bourcard assigns the role of entertainer to the figure of the “guaglione” dressed “entirely light”: jackets, trousers, waistcoats, a coppola or a “little hat of cheap straw, but more often a cinnamon-colored cap” accompany the figure of the musician, immediately recognizable above all through his instrument.