THE Naples National Archaeological Museum (MANN), one of the most important archeology museums in the world, will build a new branch in the Real Albergo dei Poveri, an unfinished 18th-century complex in the center of Naples that boasts the longest facade of any European buildings.
Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italian Minister of Culture, has released 148 million euros for the creation of MANN 2, as the new branch is called. The museum, located 1.8 km from the existing MANN site, will offer 10,000 m² of exhibition space.
MANN, established in 1777, houses the largest collection of classical archeology in the world. But a series of problems, including funding and governance issues, and a lack of exhibition space, have meant the museum has struggled to publicly display the extent of its collection.
In an interview with The arts journal, Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, said that MANN 2 is “a historic urban regeneration project that will leave its mark on Naples”. He adds: “The Archaeological Museum of Naples is at the center of Sangiuliano’s vision.
A fundraising campaign for the construction of the new museum is underway. “We need to proceed quickly with tenders and find additional resources to return this space that the city has been waiting for decades” to its former state, Sangiuliano said in a statement shared with The arts journal. Renovation work is expected to begin later this year.
The Real Albergo dei Poveri was commissioned by Charles III of Bourbon (1716-1788) – considered the first king of Naples – and built by architect Ferdinando Fuga in 1751. The building, which has a facade extending over more 400 m long and is considered one of the most famous structures in Naples, was conceived as something akin to a social housing project, but was never completed. It was, for a time, used as a prison. Today it belongs to the Municipality of Naples, but has remained vacant for years while falling into an increasingly derelict state.
News of expansion plan comes as MANN opens exhibition Alexander the Great and the East (May 29-August 28). In March, the museum reopened its west wing after a 50-year closure due to generations of funding issues. The once abandoned west wing has added 2,000 m² of exhibition space, in which the museum presents objects never before seen by the Italian public.
As well as holding some of the most important antiquities from the height of the Roman Empire, MANN is the custodian of the world’s largest collection of deposits from the surrounding area. Pompeii, the ancient and prosperous city of the Bay of Naples. At noon on August 24, 79 CE, the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius, suddenly erupted, spewing ash and toxic gases 20 miles into the air. Overnight, Pompeii, home to more than 10,000 people, disappeared under a blanket of burning soot. By morning, the city was buried under six meters of ash and molten pumice.
The sudden burial of the city also contributed to its preservation. When archaeologists began excavating the lost world of Pompeii over 200 years ago, they discovered sculptures, mosaics and ceramics that had remained nearly untouched for over a millennium.
Today, the site of Pompeii is one of Italy’s top tourist destinations, with over three million visitors each year. But many artifacts extracted from it remain in storage or in private collections. Of approximately 400,000 artifacts excavated from the ancient city, approximately one tenth – approximately 40,000 objects in total – are currently held by MANN. Some of Pompeii’s best-known relics are displayed in the museum – visitors can see the intricate gold jewelry worn by the city’s wealthy elite, depictions of Cupid and Daphne that adorned their homes, the famous statue of the god Pan having sex with a goat.
But many holdings remain invisible to the public, kept in the museum’s attic and basement in cell-like rooms secured by iron bars to deter thieves. While the funds kept in these storage cells are often loaned to other institutions, the British Museum has borrowed many for the exhibition Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum in 2013 – there was never the space to show much in Naples.
MANN2 will mainly show works from the so-called Santangelo collection, Giulierini confirmed to The Arts Journal. The collection was acquired by Francesco Santangelo, an 18th-century Neapolitan politician and aristocrat who amassed Italy’s largest collection of artefacts from Pompeii and the surrounding area, known to the Romans as Magna Graecia. The museum acquired the collection in 1865, after Santangelo’s death. He has, however, remained largely unknown ever since.
Since taking over the museum in 2015, Giulierini has raised more than €50 million from the Italian government, philanthropic donations and European Union initiatives, including the European Structural and Investment Fund. . With the funds raised, Giulierini oversaw, in 2016, the reopening of the museum’s Egyptian wing after six years of closure and, in 2017, the reopening of its epigraphic wing, also closed for six years previously. In 2019 Giulierini reopened the Magna Grecia section of the museum, a display of mosaic floors from ancient Roman villas that had not been seen by the public since 1996.
In addition to MANN2, the renovated Real Albergo dei Poveri is also expected to house a branch of the Italian National Library and new facilities for the University of Naples Federico II, the city’s main university.
