Generous and visionary – not only in the world of sports, where the name of Giorgio is inextricably linked to the founding of the Associazione Calcio Napoli and the construction of the first and only stadium owned by the blue team – the Ascarellis stood out in almost all fields of social life. Indeed, in the roughly five decades straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, their surname was associated with many words: work, culture, religion, politics, art, sports, genius, and, above all, patronage. A great story removed from the city. A story, that of the Ascarellis, dotted with many lights, in a city where shadows have often dominated. But paradoxically erased from the memory of Naples. Not only because of the abomination of the racist laws of 1938, but also due to the subconscious fear of having to deal with a past that has never passed, where the worst often prevails over the best. If the story of this family of entrepreneurs and patrons is reconstructed in a book written by Nico Pirozzi “Ascarelli. A Italian Story” (which will be presented on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 pm, at the headquarters of the Institute of Southern Culture on Via Chiatamone) to reweave the threads of memory is the project “Ascarelli. A name and a story 150 years long”, promoted by the Association Memoriae-Museo della Shoah and the Jewish Community of Naples, with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, the Campania Region, the Municipality of Naples, the State Archive of Naples, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), the Center for Jewish Studies at the Oriental University of Naples, the Chamber of Commerce of Naples, the Federation of Italy-Israel Associations, the Unified Syndicate of Journalists of Campania (SUGC), the Italian Rowing Federation (FIC), the Italian Sports Press Union – National Amateur League, the Giuseppe Levi Pelloni Foundation, the National Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired of the Province of Naples, the Valenzi Foundation; as well as the financial support of the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia, the Union of Industrialists of Naples, and the National Press Federation. A project primarily aimed at the creation of the Ascarelli Museum, in the premises located inside the old Jewish cemetery of Naples, where Giorgio and his father Pacifico rest. And, with them, many of the protagonists of a season in some ways unique. Men and women, whose perception of the world has far exceeded the confines of the time in which they lived.
