The Archaeological Museum of Stabia “Libero D'Orsi” at the Reggia di Quisisana in Castellammare of Stabia is expanding. From March 6, the rooms of the royal palace intended as a museum and storage for the numerous finds from the villas in the Stabia area will be closed to the public for expansion and enhancement works. An innovative concept will involve the storage areas, in order to make them increasingly not only places of conservation but also of use and research, while the museum visit route will be enriched with additional finds, insights and multimedia tools.
The new exhibition also includes a space for the Doryphoros of Stabiae, the statue of exceptional quality now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (USA) after a long and troubled history, but recently the subject of a request for restitution by Italy, given that its Stabia origin seems certain.
The enhancement project is curated by the Director of the Archaeological Park Gabriel Zuchtriegel and Maria Rispoli, head of the Museum, in collaboration with the Scuola Superiore Meridionale Università Federico II of Naples.
The archaeological deposits, spread over an area of about 400 square meters, once intended for the royal stables and service rooms, will house about 8000 finds from the excavations carried out in the XNUMXs by Dean D'Orsi at ancient Stabiae. The rooms, accessible to the public, were designed by the architect Lorenzo Greppi as work and fruition spaces, places of conservation and research: "hybrid" workstations, suitable for consultation, study, examination of finds with shelves, drawers, fresco racks, an emergency laboratory for restoration, touch screens for digital consultation of finds.
The existing itinerary of the Archaeological Museum will instead be enriched by educational aids and multimedia tools with a focus on the territory of ancient Stabia and the ager stabianus, on the commercial routes and on the trajectories marked by the places of worship.
The new element is represented by the museum's opening to the landscape: the dialectical relationship between the latter and the seaside villas of the Varano plateau will be investigated. Ample space will be given to the setting up of the luxurious diaetae (living rooms) of Villa Arianna and the portico triplex of Villa San Marco, as a space projected onto the sea and framed by the green slopes of the Lattari mountains.
The new section will be set up with unpublished finds, for which an intense restoration activity began last year.
“The expansion of the museum and the arrangement of the deposits has the objective of making these places a museum center of excellence in Castellammare di Stabia, integrating the cultural offering and the archaeological circuit of ancient Stabiae, in a network with Villa San Marco and Villa Arianna, extraordinary examples of aristocratic Roman villas on the Varano plateau. – underlines the Director of the Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel. – To enhance the entire Stabia area, the Park is investing a lot also in terms of new excavations at Villa San Marco, restorations and projects to improve the accessibility of the villas”.
At the same time, the redevelopment and restoration work is continuing on the Torre Colombaia, an ideal panoramic point to enjoy the views of the Gulf of Naples and Vesuvius located in the center of the Monumental Park of the Royal Palace of Quisisana, and on the rooms that will house the additional services.
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