The Jellyfish,
and Why We Embroidered One
Which is a shame, because it is one of the most beautiful things in the Mediterranean, and embroidered on linen it is the only version you can keep near you.
We knew this was the least obvious motif in Collezione Amalfi when we chose it. The lemon is the coast as everyone pictures it. The jellyfish is the part of the same view that nobody photographs, because it happens below the waterline.
It Really Does Live There
This is not a decorative invention. One of the jellyfish species most commonly recorded in Italian waters is Pelagia noctiluca, and researchers at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples have tracked it in the Gulf of Naples itself.
What they found is better than the fact that it lives there. Studying four separate appearances across 2019, they showed that the jellyfish feed out in open water and are then carried in toward the coast by the surface currents of the Tyrrhenian and by winds from the south.
So they do not sit off Amalfi. They arrive. Something out at sea decides, and a few days later they are under the cliffs.
The coast does not end where the water begins. It carries on underneath, on its own schedule.
Why It Is Called a Medusa
In Italian a jellyfish is a medusa, and the reason is exact rather than poetic.
In 1758 Linnaeus gave the animal the genus name Medusa, after the Gorgon of Greek myth whose hair was made of snakes. The tentacles were the whole argument. The name stuck, and in Italian it never became anything else: the mythological monster and the animal in the bay share a word, and no Italian finds that strange.
It is the kind of overlap that happens easily in a country where classical culture is not kept in a separate room from ordinary language.
What Happens When You Put It in Thread
A jellyfish is almost entirely motion, which is a problem for embroidery and also the reason to attempt it.
There is no transparency in thread, and no drift. What there is is rhythm: a curved body, a few loose lines below it, and the space between them doing most of the work. Ours sits in one corner with the tentacles trailing toward the hem, so the shape hangs rather than settles.
On a napkin the effect is almost abstract until somebody looks properly. Then it is unmistakably a jellyfish, usually halfway through lunch, usually accompanied by a small noise of recognition.
The Quietest Thing in Amalfi
Collezione Amalfi already says the obvious things about the coast: lemons, coral, sardines, the bright side of a Mediterranean table.
The jellyfish is the collection's quiet end. It is the motif that does not announce anything, that reads as texture across the room, and that belongs to the half of Amalfi you only see if you go in.
And it cannot sting anyone at the table, which is more than can be said for the original.
Are there really jellyfish on the Amalfi Coast?
Yes. Pelagia noctiluca is one of the species most commonly recorded in Italian waters, and researchers in Naples have tracked its appearances in the Gulf of Naples, within the same Tyrrhenian marine system as the Amalfi Coast.
Why is a jellyfish called a medusa in Italian?
Because Linnaeus named the genus Medusa in 1758, after the Gorgon whose hair was made of snakes. The tentacles were the resemblance. In Italian the word was never replaced.
Is the jellyfish a traditional symbol of Amalfi?
No, not the way lemons and ceramics are. We use it as a Mediterranean motif rather than a local emblem, for the part of the coast that sits below the view.
Which pieces carry the jellyfish motif?
Three, and the colors run in both directions. The napkins are off-white with the jellyfish in Mediterranean Blue. The placemats and the bread basket reverse it: a Mediterranean Blue ground with the jellyfish in off-white.
Jellyfish in the Gulf of Naples: D'Ambra, Saviano, Cianelli and colleagues, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Tracking Pelagia noctiluca scyphomedusae by combining modeling and stable isotope approaches, Frontiers in Marine Science, 2025, which tracked four appearances during 2019 and attributed their arrival inshore to Tyrrhenian surface currents and southerly winds.
The name: Etymonline, on the genus name given in 1758 after the Gorgon of Greek myth, chosen for the creature's long tentacles.
The half of Amalfi you have to go in for.