Federico II opens the Courts with the FAI

The courtyards of the University of Naples Federico II open.

On Saturday 4 December 2021, PhD students and students from Federico II together with the volunteers of FAI Giovani Napoli will welcome visitors to the superb headquarters of one of the oldest universities in the world – visiting shifts from 9.30 am to 15.30 pm (last visit) reservations recommended: www.faiprenotazioni.fondoambiente.it.

The initiative is the first appointment of the collaboration between FAI Campania and the University of Naples Federico II that will continue in the coming months.

The opening of the places of Frederick II to the city is promoted and realized within the activities of F2 Cultura, in a series of events that amplify the vocation of “Citizen University”, typical of Federico II, in view of the celebrations of its 800 years in 2024.

The initiative is part of the first experiments of an event that will involve the entire metropolitan area, because the ancient Neapolitan university cannot ignore the places where, since 1224, it has lived its history.

The visit will start from the main entrance of the headquarters of the Federico II University (in Corso Umberto I, 40), built between 1897 and 1908 based on a design by architects Pierpaolo Quaglia and Guglielmo Melisurgo, which houses the University governance offices and its most representative places. A route that will lead to the citadel of studies of ancient Neapolis, in the Mezzocannone area, the beating heart of the University: an alternation of nineteenth-century buildings and ancient monumental complexes dating back to the fifteenth century, characterized by enchanting cloisters.

From the main entrance, the route continues into the central vestibule where the statue of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia, founder of the University, is located, to reach the two monumental staircases and the foyers leading to the classrooms, where the first two large symmetrical courtyards are reached, divided by the monumental Scalone della Minerva.

From one of them you can directly access another smaller and more intimate courtyard, inside which a section of the Greek walls of the city was found, a symbol of the urban history and the uninterrupted continuity of its parts, as well as the millenary stratification dating back to the foundation of Neapolis of Greco-Roman origin. The route continues with the ascent of the Scalone della Minerva, which assumes a hinge role between the university institutes, until reaching the historic classrooms of Chemistry and Physics, where the statues with the goddess Minerva are placed.

The itinerary will lead to the Cortile del Salvatore until reaching the so-called monumental courtyard, the seventeenth-century Cortile delle Statue, characterized by a system of different accesses, which with the Unification of Italy was chosen to make it a sort of pantheon of illustrious men, timeless symbols of Neapolitan culture. Visitors will continue on the route until entering the Complex of Saints Marcellino and Festo, an extraordinary place, characterized by the presence of a first cloister of large dimensions with a rectangular plan.

For the occasion, the Museums of the Federico II Natural and Physical Sciences Museum Center will be exceptionally open and can be visited freely and independently, at the end of the tour (the Royal Museum, the Zoological Museum, the Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Paleontology and the Museum of Physics).

At 12 noon, in the sixteenth-century church of Saints Marcellinus and Festus, the public will also be able to enjoy a musical moment by the Wind Quintet of the Scarlatti Young Orchestra.

At the end of the tour, it will be possible to visit 'Durante', the Cyop&kaf exhibition, inspired by the Divine Comedy, set up in the cloister of San Pietro Martire of the Department of Humanistic Studies. Before or after the visit, it will also be possible to visit the Federiciani Museums, open to the public until 18:XNUMX pm.

The itinerary proposed by the Federico II University and the FAI Campania has the dual objective of opening the extraordinary monumental spaces of the University to the community and identifying an alternative route for discovering the urban history and the vast and valuable architectural heritage of the ancient center of Naples.