The liner notes for the album Suitcase Serenata by the Australian band I Viaggiatori say,

When the new funicular railway was built to go up Mount Vesuvius, no one wanted to travel on it, fearing for their lives. The owners, worried about losing business, commissioned Peppino Turco and Luigi Denza in 1880 to compose a song to commemorate, and encourage people to use, the railway.