Like ripping a Caravaggio. Culture mourns 24-year-old musician killed in Naples

The world of culture mourns the absurd and heinous death of Giovanbattista Cutolo, a 24-year-old young Neapolitan musician who was killed yesterday by a juvenile inPiazza Municipio in Naples over a trivial parking matter. The argument broke out yesterday around 5 a.m. Cutolo was in the company of his girlfriend at the end of a night spent in the company, and was murdered by gunfire by the young man who was only 16 years old but already had a record for attempted murder and fraud (he has already been stopped thanks to the presence of video surveillance systems, and has admitted responsibility). The dynamics are now under investigation by the Naples mobile squad, but the city and Italy mourn the young talent of the Scarlatti Orchestra of Naples, in which Cutolo played horn.

Despite his young age, Cutolo already had experience outside the city, since he had also previously collaborated with the San Remo Symphony Orchestra. “Although very young,” recalls Filippo Biolè, president of the San Remo Symphony Orchestra Foundation, “he had distinguished himself for his remarkable musical gifts and great talent for one of the most difficult and exposed brass instruments. He had also participated with passion and profit in one of our advanced horn courses. The news of his untimely as well as unacceptable death has left all of us dismayed, and on behalf of the entire artistic department, offices and top management of the San Remo Symphony Orchestra I would like to express to the family of this wonderful young man the most sincere feelings of affection and closeness.”

Scarlatti’s conductor, Gaetano Russo, also remembers the young man as a talented musician who was already in demand throughout Italy and beyond: “Cornist yes, but he also played the piano, he was a well-rounded musician: he deeply loved symphonic music, which according to a ragged idea would not be music for young people. His eyes sparkled when we rehearsed Beethoven; in that sparkle was all the vitality of a young artist. He was in demand by many orchestras in other Italian and European cities but he would not leave Naples; it was here he wanted to play. Instead, his city killed him.”

The young man’s mother, Daniela Di Maggio, entrusts the Regional News cameras with her grief, recalling that having his life snuffed out was like ripping apart Caravaggio’s Seven Works of Mercy, the Lombard painter’s masterpiece located at Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, or like dropping a bomb on the Colosseum. “Until a few hours ago I had a son, a musical talent, a cornist who played in the Scarlatti, he was a person loved by everyone, a boy to whom we gave so many values,” he said. “And now because of a parking lot even he was shot. I saw him this morning my son, his face was swollen, he had a bullet in his chest. Truly I am speechless: they told me that a 16-year-old shot my son. It’s something I can’t stand: if you go out at 16 years old with a working weapon you have knowledge of the drama you are creating around you. So I make an appeal to all institutions: you have to change the laws, for the sake of the other boys who remain, for all my sons’ friends, who absolutely do not deserve to be killed over a traffic problem by a brutal person who has no values and destroys a boy’s life. I cannot accept this anymore.”

“The idea that this boy had a person brutally shoot him cannot be accepted anymore,” Giovanbattista’s mother continued. "Naples has become a very violent city, a far west. My son was a boy with values and talent, he could only improve society by staying in this world, because he was bringing forward beauty, music, art. It is as if Benedetto Croce had been shot before he wrote an important essay in philosophy, as if they had dropped a bomb on the Colosseum. We cannot allow this any longer, I for my son will tear myself to pieces so that whoever killed him will get the right punishment: he is not 16 years old who leaves the house with a gun, this is not a child this is a brutal man, a demon who goes and destroys the lives of wonderful boys like my son. Tonight two Neapolitans met that are not alike, because the Naples of Giovanni Battista Cutolo is completely different than the Naples of this balko who maybe lives on TikTok and horrors that he sees every day from morning to night. These are horrible things: it is as if we today had ripped open a Caravaggio painting. By killing Joao we ripped open the Seven Works of Mercy, we burned them. Let’s think about art, music, culture: these are the values we have to give our children."

Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano in turn spoke on the incident: “A breathtaking grief for a young life barbarically broken for futile reasons. The dream of Giovanbattista Cutolo, talented cornetist of the Scarlatti Young Orchestra of Naples, was shattered by yet another episode of criminality just hours after the wounding of a 15-year-old boy in Ponticelli over a trivial quarrel between peers. We need to create the conditions, starting from school, family dialogue and the fundamental role of parents as educators to overturn the culture of abuse and the use of violence among peers even in the small acts of daily life. It is absurd for a life to be cut short in such a horrible way. It is brutal and unacceptable. My sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Giovanbattista Cutolo, a young man who cultivated the noble art of music.”

Like ripping a Caravaggio. Culture mourns 24-year-old musician killed in Naples

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