40 pages Photographs by Luca Santese, Marco P. Valli 35.3 x 25 cm Language: English and Italian Paperback Publisher: Cesura Publish 2023
On June 4, 2023, as Naples erupted in a historic celebration of S.C.C. Napoli’s long-awaited championship victory (its first since the Maradona era), Luca Santese & Marco P. Valli released Malatì, a photographic newspaper captured in the decisive week leading up to the title. Shot between April 29 and May 4, the work immerses itself in the city at a moment of collective delirium, when football, identity, memory, and myth fuse into one unstoppable wave.
Carried away by the same malatì: the joyful, irrepressible “madness” that fuels Neapolitan passion and now pulses through the team’s viral anthem, the authors respond with a wild and affectionate visual tribute. Icons of the city, fragments of its history, and portraits of its inhabitants collide in images that are chaotic, breathless, and exuberant, like a scooter racing full speed through the narrow backstreets at night.
The cover features a custom cake crafted for the authors by a Neapolitan pastry chef; the sequence closes on the remains of that same cake, scattered around a fragment of a Neapolitan poem. Together, they frame a publication that is equal parts celebration, devotion, and visual eruption; a snapshot of Naples at its most incandescent.
