3 steps are considered steps, 4 steps are not steps anymore, they are stairs. And stairs need to have a handrail. That’s what we learned when we got our 128 year old Victorian house ready to be rented out. At least those are the rules in America. Here in Europe, in Italy, specifically in Napoli they might never have any rules like that, because here stairs or steps are more than just an elevation level from one floor to the next. Here stairs have another importance: they are the invitation to a building, the show-off feature of a house. They have the perfect proportion, Fibonacci would have been so proud! He was an Italian mathematician from the 12th century, who developed the theory of perfect proportions.

When you look at staircases here in Napoli, the always seem to have the right proportion to the building, the front facade, the entrance. They look elegant, beautiful and they are functional.