Two famous balconies

With the entry of the anglo-american troops in the city on October 1st 1943. Frank Johnson McSherry (1892-1977), General Brigadier of the american army with the appointment of vice Ufficiale Capo degli Affari Civili dell'AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories), had the task to restore order, law and peace among the civic population and to provide for the restoration of the basic services (food suppl, public health, water supply, transports, banks and the post office).

One of his report described the big gravity of the conditions of Naples after the giving up of the nazi-fascists: the supplies were sacked by the troops in flight, the water was distributed only in some points of the city and in rationed way, the supplies of fuel were inexistent so much that supplies of coal were immediately necessary, industries and hotels were seriously damaged, the system of supplying and distribution of electric energy was destroyed, the transports were taken away by the Nazi or were unusable; the only positive aspect was the absence of epidemics such as typhus and cholera among the population, about 600.000 Neapolitans remained in the city.

With the return in Naples, the allied troops requisitioned public building. Schools, offices and commercial centres to establish military and logistic coomands, Palace San Giacomo was one of them and the image portrays Frank MCSherry and two collaborators, appeared at a balcony of the second floor of the municipal building. In the background there is the old via dei Guantai (today, for a way, via Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra) in the same way in which the street looked like before the town planning interventions of the postwar period that changed the aspect of the area between via Roma and via Medina.

The gold Medal for military valour that decorates the civic gonfalon as a souvenir of the glorious Quattro giornate del settembre 1943 (Four days of September 1943), even if it was confered in September 1944 it was actually delivered after four years. The liberation of the whole national area and the recostrunction after the disasters of the Second World War, skidded the cerimony of delivery of the high sign of valour that conferred by a prince of Casa Savoia (Umberto,lieutenant of the reign) was pinned to the gonfalon by a president of the republic.

A bill signed by the Mayor, law. Domenico Moscati, made officially known to the citizenship that the President, Luigi Enaudi, on September 29th 1948 came to the city and attended the solemn rite of the delivery. Einaudi came at the Mergellina station with the presidential train, then, after a short stop in the prefecture, he went to Palace San Giacomo where he received the greeting of the Mayor, of the Assessors and of the town councillor. Meanwhile in the area in front of the municipal palace a big mass, that acclaimed the second President of the young Italian Republic, crowded. Einaudi returned the tender popular participation appearing, with the Mayor, at a balcony and greeting the crowd.

After that, quickly, the presidential procession left piazza del Municipio steering towards the promenade, in the round terrace Diaz, where the charm ceremony at the presence of the civic and military authorities took place.