In its 2,500-year history, Naples has witnessed numerous wars, revolutions, natural disasters and invasions. Over the past couple of months, however, Neapolitans experienced something almost entirely new: silence.

Italy was the first European country to institute a strict nationwide lockdown to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. In the southern Italian region of Campania, of which Naples is the capital, lockdown restrictions were even tighter due to fears that the virus could ravage the chronically underfunded medical system in the south.