Angelo Picone lowers a wicker basket full of food to the ground on a rope, leaning over his rustic balcony, verdant with pot plants.
Picone’s simple message is resonating in a country trying to feed a growing number of poor during the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has officially killed nearly 200 in Naples and more than 15,000 across Italy in just over a month.
This makes the hanging “solidarity baskets” and foldout tables laden with food — everything from bread to boxes of milk, as well as hot dishes — all the more important at one of the most surreal moments in the city’s history.