Mr. Franco Napoleone, former medical director of Anna Rizzoli Hospital in Lacco Ameno, today is 73 years old and for 30 years is leader of the association Associazione Pro Loco S. Alessandro and with his friends Rosaria Buono, Gilberto Buono, Giovanni Cervera, Renato Troise and Teresa Cuomo, organizes the parade in costumes of the great eras of the Island of Ischia, which takes place on the occasion of the St. Alexander day on Friday, August 26 with about 300 people. It starts with the Greek colonization in the VIII century BC , through the Renaissance, focusing on the figures of the poet Vittoria Colonna and her husband Lord of Ischia, Don Ferrante d' Avalos. There are princes of royal blood and the blue bloods but also the lower classes of peasants and fishermen and, finally, the period of the Bourbon kings Charles III and Ferdinand IV and the French decade - 1806-1915 - with Joachim Murat and with the Restoration with Ferdinand II.

About two thousand years of history of Ischia, the Mother Island of the Gulfs of Naples and Gaeta, is represented by figures in stringent costumes demonstrating the historical significance of Ischia, through the evocation of its main protagonists, the islanders and tourists from all over the world.

The long procession starts from the village of Ischia Ponte and Celsa at 18 o'clock and crosses the main streets of the City of Ischia arriving in the small and ancient village of San Alessandro dating back to the twelfth century with its small chapel of the ancient family of Manzi which, then, changed the name in Di Manso, dating back to the thirteenth century. The small community, still consists of 50 families and a few loyal guests, to this day, has respect for the history so much that the little village is now subjected as a historic building as well as the environment.

Franco Napoleone- who lives here always - welcomed me in a windy day in July in the small street that from S. Alessandro leads to the Port, built by King Ferdinand of Bourbon in 1854, and was once the only road that led up to Casamicciola. In the 1930s in this village, the great German naturalist Paul Buchner established his house and decided to bring to light the history and peculiarities of the Island of Ischia with deep passion. The research was continued by his son George (1914-2005), archaeologist, who over the 1950s discovered at the Bay of San Montano, the city of Pithaecusa, the first Western Greek colony, and the "Cup of Nestor", the oldest Greek writing of the West that today is exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of the eighteenth century, Villa Arbusto in Lacco Ameno.

Starting from 20011/2012 academic year , the Association St. Alessandro will offer to a new graduate in archeology at the Federico II University of Naples a scholarship of 1500€, tells me Franco.

"Our initiative is promoted by the residents and visitors of the Village of St. Alessandro only for the love of our island and its great history and so that everyone, islanders and tourists may love our country even more beautiful and fascinating in its nature and history", says Franco. He stresses that "only this year, we received a contribution of 10 thousand Euros thanks to the interest of regional councilor Dominico De Siano and Regione Campania by the Company of Care and Stay. "

But how was this parade of costumes born? It represents the most important event of the island of Ischia in August.

"Thirty years ago admiring an exhibition of local handicrafts, I saw a tourist that bought a beautiful cloth towel. I was soon attracted to a girl that transacted the sale of the towel with a tourist, having inherited it but not considering the historical value of the towel. The girl, with easy, sold the historical heritage of our island taken away by her great-grandmother and then I decided to buy all the towels and so was born the idea of presenting a parade of dresses with accessories witnesses of the past ages", explains Franco. He also announces that this year there will be a partnership with the community in the province of Castelvetro in Modena with 25 people in vintage costumes and people come from Procida in Greek old clothes to celebrate the heroine of Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-Paris 1869) that the writer - who visited Ischia three times in 1812, in 1820 and 1844– sets on the nearby island that since has called the "island of Graziella" ..

The parade of old costumes stops in 1854 when the Bourbons opened the port. Maybe this year on the occasion of 150 anniversary of the unification of Italy, there will also the Giuseppe Garibaldi's interpretation, who in 1864 lived in Casamicciola in the Zavota house to make a series of thermal treatments at the Terme di Luigi Manzi in Piazza dei Bagni del Gurgitello. Garibaldi marks the end of the old Kingdom of Naples and the beginning of new united Italy. The parade will increase its historical importance. There will be also the flag flyers come from the Town of Cava dei Tirreni.

In short, for about three hours - from 18 to 21 – along a way of 5 km approximately, will pass two millennia of history and traditions. 'It is a more different Story compared to that one felt by contemporaries - quoting Fernando Braduel - because it is far away from anger, dreams and illusions" of the people has lived it in the past. Nowadays it is enormously educational, at the time of Internet, that cancels hastily the memory of men, women and their land that "feeds and sustains them." Today like yesterday.

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