The Archaeological Museum of Stabia Libero d'Orsi reopens to the public on March 6 with its renewed layout, an expanded itinerary, visitable storage areas and a training and digitalization school.
The inauguration of the new museum itinerary together with the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, was attended by the Director General of the Museums, Massimo Osanna, the Prefect Head of the Extraordinary Commission of Castellammare di Stabia, Raffaele Cannizzaro, the Director General of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the Director of the Archaeological Museum of Stabia Libero D'Orsi, Maria Rispoli, Prof. Carlo Rescigno of the University of Campania 'Luigi Vanvitelli'.
On this occasion, the Commander of the NCTP, Capt. Massimiliano Croce, also presented the recovery of approximately 125 archaeological finds from Campania, the result of a complex inspection activity conducted by the TPC Nucleus of Naples, with the collaboration of the Territorial Arma of Torre Annunziata and in synergy with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii - Protection Area, towards a private collector from the province of Salerno. The finds will be protected and enhanced in the context of the renovated Archaeological Museum of Stabia Libero D'Orsi.
The rooms are doubled and the collection of works from the villas of the Stabia area is enriched. 507 finds are now on display, including mural paintings, marble furnishings, ceramic and bronze furnishings. The itinerary is integrated with technologies and multimedia educational devices that implement the physical and cultural accessibility of the works and contents. The complex's storage rooms are also enhanced, according to a new concept aimed at making them no longer just places of conservation but also of fruition and research, open to the public.
Since 2020, the Museum has been housed in the spaces of the Reggia di Quisisana – a building that boasts a history of over seven centuries, then enhanced in the Bourbon era – as a space dedicated to the exhibition of numerous and prestigious finds from the Stabia area, together with precious testimonies of everyday life, in particular that which took place in the Roman villas of otium (luxurious residences aimed at rest, of the body and spirit, from activities and business) and in the rustic villas (similar in concept to modern farms), located in a panoramic position with a “view” of the Gulf of Naples.
The operation to enhance the Quisisana complex, granted for use by the Municipality of Castellammare, was supervised and promoted by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, directed at the time by the current Director General of the Museums, Massimo Osanna, allowing the oldest royal Bourbon site to be returned to the Italian heritage, today home to a prestigious Museum and cultural center.
“The reopening to the public of the Archaeological Museum of Stabia, with its new layout, its collections enriched by finds from the villas of Stabia and the temporary reunion with those preserved at the MANN, its renovated rooms, the advanced training center, is wonderful news for culture.
This is a unique site that, thanks to everyone's work, returns to shine and to offer citizens and enthusiasts an incredible offer of historical testimonies of great importance. A fundamental piece of the strategic operation of valorization of this area, within the project of the Great Pompeii, that immense park of history spread out, within which the archaeological areas of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis, Boscoreale and all the surrounding territory insist.
The new Stabia Museum will be one of the pearls of this project that demonstrates, once again, the centrality that Campania has for world archaeology and our choice to continue investing in these wonderful riches of the cultural heritage of the Nation. – declares the Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano – On Castellammare there is also a Ministry funding of 4 million euros for the restoration and re-functionalization of the Convent of San Francesco, behind the Diocesan Museum. The executive project is being delivered. We will start the work by the summer”.
“Today we are reaping the fruits of an ambitious project in which I have always believed, committing myself on the front line for the enhancement of the Reggia di Quisisana, which has become, since 2020, the natural and prestigious exhibition space of the archaeological heritage of ancient Stabiae. – declares the General Director of the Museums, Massimo Osanna – Visiting the Archaeological Museum of Stabia means not only understanding the life and culture of the past, but also projecting oneself towards the future: here, in fact, we intend to build a virtuous model of dialogue with the territory, a good practice based on interinstitutional synergy and experimental scientific research.
The institute, which reopens to the public with a new layout enriched in the group of exhibits and in the teaching communication methodology, is an invitation to discover our history: also the enhancement agreement with the National Archaeological Museum of Naples has allowed us to offer visitors an extraordinary journey among artifacts that have just undergone a careful restoration campaign”
“The Archaeological Museum of Stabia is much more than a museum of valuable archaeological works, in terms of quantity and quality that highlight the historical and cultural value of the Stabia area – underlines the Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel – but a true cultural hub and research center of international appeal, as it is home to a training school for the valorization of cultural heritage equipped with equipment for digitalization and accessible storage for research and study”
Today the tour route has been expanded with the introduction of new restored finds while the existing one has been revisited in light of the introduction of new technologies, multimedia and educational devices. For the first time the displays bring together the decorative apparatus of the maritime villas found on the Varano hill during the Bourbon excavations and those discovered by Libero D'Orsi starting from 1950.
The exhibition that brings together, after more than 250 years, the finds from Stabia preserved at the MANN and those discovered by the dean, now kept at the Quisisana, was made possible thanks to the Agreement signed with the MANN for the enhancement of the Stabian heritage that allows the museum to have on loan for three years many of the finds discovered in Stabia according to rotation cycles. Therefore, for the first time it will be possible to enjoy the decorative apparatus organized by context of origin.
THE MULTIMEDIA PATH
The 6 multimedia devices along the route tell, through immersive and participatory methods, the strong relationships between the ancient and contemporary cities.
It is said of an extraordinary archaeological site, the ancient Stabiae, twice destroyed and twice reborn. Conquered and devastated during the Social War by Silla's troops, as punishment for having gone over to the side of the Italic rebels, it comes back to life as the pagus of Nocera and becomes the seat of important and prestigious maritime villas, equipped with wonderful and luxurious decorative apparatuses.
It was later destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD like Pompeii and Herculaneum, but unlike the latter it was reborn in 90 AD as reported by the poet Statius. Stabiae was the seat of a statio of the Misano fleet and continued to be so even in the post-eruption era, as demonstrated by the finds discovered under the Cathedral of Castellammare di Stabia.
In the first room a multimedia model enters into relation with the exhibits on display, recounting over a long period of time the transformations of the territory - including between Herculaneum, Vesuvius, Pompeii up to Sorrento on the Neapolitan side and Nocera and the Lattari Mountains on the Salerno side; and the two different
moments of discovery of the ancient city of Stabia, the first in the Bourbon era (in the years in which Pompeii and Herculaneum were discovered); the second by the President Libero D'Orsi, in the 50s.
This last moment, in particular, is retraced through a multimedia diary with the voice, photos and notes of Dean D'Orsi. A multimedia paper book that visitors can browse virtually to discover all the details that have made the history and fortune of the excavations. The contribution of the Stabia Excavation Committee, which preserves the precious documentary heritage of Libero D'Orsi, was important for the creation of this installation.
RELATIONS WITH THE TERRITORY
The new concept of the museum is strongly oriented to highlight the connections that ancient Stabiae was able to create with the resources of its surrounding ager (territory), corresponding today to the municipalities of S. Antonio Abate, Santa Maria La Carità, Gragnano, Casola, Pimonte. A rich and varied territory that, in Roman times, was characterized by the installation of interesting residential and productive complexes respecting the vocation of each agricultural land. Contexts little known by the community that the Museum intends to enhance and tell in its specificity.
A large section is dedicated to the finds from these complexes, equipped with apparatus of important architectural and decorative importance, from the living rooms, to the triclinia and the cubicula (bedrooms) up to the refined thermal complexes.
The scientific project was curated by the General Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel and by Maria Rispoli, Director of the Archaeological Museum of Stabia Libero D'Orsi.
Local scholars, students of the SSM – Scuola Superiore Meridionale and researchers from the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli contributed to the creation of the content.
The new section is entirely dedicated to the landscape seen as crucial for the construction of the relationship between nature and the built environment.
The installations evoke the large rooms overlooking Vesuvius and the Gulf of Stabia which still today represent scenic backdrops projected onto the sea.
In the museum, the landscape that could be enjoyed in the pre-79 AD era has been faithfully reconstructed on the back of the room, stripping it of all contemporary constructions and presenting it in a dynamic projection that changes over the course of the 24 hours of the day.
The projection becomes the fifth perspective to the furnishings found in the peristyles and gardens of the villas of Varano. The rooms dedicated to living and daytime rest, to otium and reading, to conviviality and hospitality overlooked them, keeping the gaze perpetually projected on the panorama: Ischia and Capo Miseno, Capri and the Sorrento peninsula but also the high and green mountains of which Symmachus praises the quality and healthiness of the milk produced by the herds that grazed here.
On the walls are numerous figures of donors, portraits of the homeowners, female and male figures captured in a thoughtful and languid attitude. The faces are seen in their intimacy, absorbed and thinking, deeply in symbiosis with the context.
The words of Cicero, who wrote a letter to his friend Marco Mario, stand out on the walls of the rooms: «I have no doubts about it: you have made an opening in your bedroom and you have opened up a view of the Gulf of Stabia […]»
The discovery of the fully preserved chariot with its horses, along the ramps of Villa Arianna, is evidence of an internal road system between the Varano plateau and the sea but is also a sign of a massacre, that of the Plinian eruption, which destroyed and buried the ancient city.
But unlike Pompeii and Herculaneum, Stabiae is reborn.
With Pompeii gone, Stabiae was the only outlet for Nocera. Its roads, the one by land and the one by sea, saved it from oblivion.
The rebirth is told through an interactive multimedia installation and by the finds received on loan from the Diocesan Museum of Sorrento and Stabia, which preserves and displays the finds discovered under
the Cathedral of Castellammare di Stabia, which dates back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD
Credits
Sole Procedure Manager and Works Director: Maria Rispoli Scientific Project: Maria Rispoli, Gabriel Zuchtriegel
Exhibition design: arch. Lorenzo Greppi
Restoration: Teresa Argento, Stefania Giudice, Raffaella Guarino, Paola Sabbatucci, Diana Eleonora Maria Spada
Installation construction: Petrucci allestimenti srl Handling of works of art: F.lli Bevilacqua Production of multimedia equipment: Aurora meccanica Production of models and scale models: Architalab
Graphic design: Sintesi Studio
Loans: National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Diocesan Museum of Sorrento and Stabia, Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the metropolitan area of Naples Protection area - Archaeological Park of Pompeii: Anna Onesti, Antonino Russo,
Andrea Foti (Ales SpA), Angela Cimmino (Ales SpA), Paolo Mennella (Ales SpA).
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DEPOSITS OF STABIA-PALESTRA DI QUISISANA
The warehouses, which will be open to the public and open to visitors, have been conceived and designed not only as places dedicated to the conservation of an archaeological heritage unknown to non-experts, but also as spaces dedicated to knowledge and sharing, open to the public and to the most diverse professional figures for study and work.
All the spaces have been designed to be accessible to the public, divided into permanently accessible spaces and for occasional openings: the aim is to accompany the visitor in an unprecedented “behind the scenes”, in the beating heart of a long cognitive and scientific process that goes from the excavation of the find to its musealization.
An important project for the digitalization of the entire collection of Stabian finds has been launched, the project of which is curated by Maria Rispoli and Alberto Bruni.
The first data will be immediately accessible through multimedia stations located in the storage rooms. They will be available to visitors and scholars who will be able to consult the databases according to diversified levels of use.
TRAINING CENTER AND 3D DIGITALIZATION LABORATORY OF THE ROYAL PALACE OF QUISISANA
An advanced training center has been created inside the Reggia di Quisisana, thanks to the project “ISIDE – Shared and federated training path for the Safety & Security of cultural sites of the MiC of the Campania Region”, financed with resources from the “PON Legalità” 2014-2020 of the Ministry of the Interior.
Thanks to this project, it was possible to create multimedia classrooms specifically equipped with extremely advanced technological features, including 3D viewers for immersive training experiences.
Within these classrooms, together with those created in other cultural locations in the Campania Region, a training activity has already been started (with both live lessons, delivered by teachers present in one of the classrooms, and deferred, thanks to a specially created teaching platform that can be used by participants inside the classrooms or remotely, from any type of workstation) regarding the aspects of safety, understood as both Safety and Security, and the protection of heritage in order to increase the skills and knowledge of all the staff of the MiC of the Campania Region.
The project is closely connected with a similar project of the Calabria Region, thanks to the federated vision underlying their implementation.
The classrooms, equipment, and infrastructures may also be used for other training initiatives and projects, in order to ensure the right cultural diffusion and dissemination in all sectors of interest of the MiC (and beyond), being able to operate in synergy with universities and other national and international institutes/bodies.
Inside the spaces, a special laboratory for the 3D digitalization of finds and artistic objects has also been created in collaboration with the Scuola Superiore Meridionale, equipped with technologically cutting-edge equipment and devices.
The expansion of the Museum is part of a series of projects for the Royal Palace and its historic garden for a total amount of €7.616.000.
Credits
Sole Procedure Manager and Director of Works: Maria Rispoli Scientific Project: Maria Rispoli, Gabriel Zuchtriegel
Exhibition design: arch. Lorenzo Greppi
Restoration: Teresa Argento, Stefania Giudice, Paola Sabbatucci Installation: Bawer SPA
INFO for the VISIT
Museum Ticket €8 – Reductions and free admission as per regulations
or with Pompeii 3 days ticket valid for all the sites of the Great Pompeii
or with My Pompeiicard subscription
Museum opening:
From November 1st to March 31st: every day from 9,00 to 17,00 (last admission at 16,00)
– Closed: Tuesday
From 1st April to 31st October: every day from 9,00 to 19,00 (last admission at 18,00) Closed: on Tuesdays
The Museum is part of the Greater Pompeii, the large widespread park that includes the archaeological areas of Pompeii, Boscoreale, Oplontis and Stabia and all the surrounding territory.
The sites of the Great Pompeii are connected with the Pompeii Artebus shuttle service. Info and timetables: www.pompeiisites.org
Article published on March 4, 2024 - 18pm
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