Pizza and song have gone around the world — an expression of Neapolitan pride in the city's two greatest cultural exports. It acknowledges that although Naples may be poor and troubled, it has given humanity two of its most beloved pleasures, and that counts for something profound.
Pizza as we know it was born in Naples, specifically in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the tomato — brought from the Americas via Spain — was combined with flatbread dough and mozzarella in the 'pizzerie' of the 'quartieri poveri.' The 'pizza Margherita,' created in 1889 by pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy, crystallized the dish's national identity. Simultaneously, Neapolitan song was conquering the world: 'O Sole Mio' (1898), 'Santa Lucia,' 'Funiculì Funiculà' (1880, written for the new Vesuvius funicular railway) were performed across Europe and the Americas, carried first by Italian emigrants and then by the gramophone and radio. In the Neapolitan diaspora that began in the late nineteenth century and accelerated after the Second World War, emigrants brought both: the pizza recipe reached New York, Buenos Aires, and Sydney, while Neapolitan tenors like Enrico Caruso became global celebrities. The proverb encodes the Neapolitan conviction that cultural gifts are the city's true wealth.
The proverb crystallized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the simultaneous global spread of Neapolitan emigration, pizza, and recorded Neapolitan music made the city's cultural exports a matter of common knowledge and popular pride.
A Neapolitan in New York City describing his pride in his hometown
Sono qui da trent'anni e ovunque vado trovo la pizza e le canzoni di casa. 'A pizza e 'a canzone hanno fatto 'o giro 'o munno.
I've been here thirty years and everywhere I go I find pizza and songs from home. Pizza and song have gone around the world.
A pizzaiolo receiving an international award
Sono orgoglioso, ma il merito non è mio — è di Napoli. 'A pizza e 'a canzone hanno fatto 'o giro 'o munno prima che io nascessi.
I'm proud, but the credit isn't mine — it's Naples's. Pizza and song went around the world before I was born.
A music teacher explaining the global reach of Neapolitan culture to students
Pensate: Caruso, 'O Sole Mio, la pizza margherita. 'A pizza e 'a canzone hanno fatto 'o giro 'o munno.
Think about it: Caruso, 'O Sole Mio, pizza margherita. Pizza and song have gone around the world.
A Neapolitan defending his city against northern Italian stereotypes
Dite quello che volete. Ma 'a pizza e 'a canzone hanno fatto 'o giro 'o munno — e vengono da qua.
Say what you want. But pizza and song have gone around the world — and they come from here.