“Caveat”, the photographic project by Andrea Martino, takes its name from a Latin word that sounds like a warning: “beware.” The series explores the caves of Vallone di San Rocco in Naples, a hidden and threatened treasure, a challenge for both the eye and the memory. These ancient cavities, dug into yellow tuff—a volcanic material formed by an eruption of the Campi Flegrei around 12,000 years ago—shaped the city: Naples drew from them for its constructions, but the caves also served multiple purposes, as shelters, workplaces, storage spaces, and even landfills. Today, these cavities lie beneath an urban jungle that, while hosting extraordinary biodiversity, leaves an open wound in both the rock and the city’s history.

Martino’s photography becomes a tool for rediscovery and memory, offering a historical and formal portrait of the caves. The images question the future of these places with the intention of recognizing and understanding their value. The choice of black and white enhances the visual language of the series: it emphasizes forms and contrasts, and conveys a suspended temporality that highlights the layering of histories from the eruption of the Campi Flegrei to the present day.

“Caveat” inevitably evokes the archetype of the cave as humanity’s original refuge: a primordial and protective space where humans confront emptiness, matter, light, and shadow. In this sense, the Vallone caves become not only a geological and cultural testimony, but also a place of collective introspection.

Martino’s series demonstrates that these quarries are not simply hollows in the tuff, but a unique environment and geological heritage intertwined with Neapolitan cultural memory.  “Caveat” is thus an invitation to look, a work that fascinates while preserving.