"Among the characters frequently encountered in the great theater of Pulcinella that is Naples, there is not only the “guappo.” There is also the “soul of Purgatory.” On the walls at street corners in authentically working-class Neapolitan neighborhoods, one often finds votive shrines with Madonnas and saints, as well as “souls of Purgatory.” Their artistic value is nil, but their anthropological and cultural significance is very interesting. [...] It is not the devils of Hell or the angels of Heaven that inhabit Naples, but the souls of Purgatory. They are an intermediate population, whose only destiny is to try to save themselves from the worst depths and rise towards a definitive salvation from which they remain fatally distant. And the common people pray for the souls in Purgatory; they have a prominent place in their devotion. [...] The soul in Purgatory represents those who are not completely lost, who have not fallen into Hell, who have not disappeared, swallowed up in the bottomless cavities of the ground in Naples. In one way or another, Neapolitans nestle in these cavities and do not get lost: rather, like the soul in Purgatory, they remain suspended, halfway between high and low, between Paradise and Hell. Vertically, they move without changing place, without ever moving, just as horizontally a cyclist does, who, skillfully exercising their strength on the pedals, neither advances nor retreats: standing still on two wheels, they remain in balance or, as they say, ‘surplace’. [...] In the same way, the Neapolitan, without ever taking a step forward or backward, maintains his balance in his immobility."