Campi Flegrei, published by 5 Continents Editions in 2025, considers the volcanic and archaeological territory west of Naples as a landscape that must be interpreted, not simply recorded. Luigi Spina has explored the area since 2020, following a geography shaped by seismic activity, ancient occupation, and continual urban transformation. Here nature, history, and present-day life meet in an unstable equilibrium: a harsh environment made compelling by the density of human traces within it.
The book’s subject is neither a straightforward archaeological survey nor a conventional portrait of place. Spina moves among landmarks that act as points of orientation and memory: the Dragonara Cave, Piscina Mirabilis, the Theatre of Misenum, the Flavian Amphitheatre at Puteoli, the Temple of Apollo beside Lake Avernus, and the Temples of Venus and Diana. The route extends through the hills above Baiae toward Cumae, bringing together Greek and Roman remains, monumental sites, landscapes, and the surrounding urban sprawl. The resulting image of Campi Flegrei is layered and unsettled, attentive to the tension between the persistence of ruins and the earth’s capacity for change.
Texts by Spina and archaeologist Fabio Pagano, director of the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park, accompany 140 colour illustrations. Their collaboration places photographic perception alongside archaeological knowledge without reducing the landscape to either. For collectors, the book is notable for the coherence of its long-term engagement and for the way it treats a culturally significant region as a living, contested field rather than a collection of isolated monuments. The 220-page English-language hardback is designed as a substantial record of a project in which geology, antiquity, and contemporary habitation remain inseparable.
