entry Oct. 2003
Saints Marcellino & Festo Monastery
Fortunately, Naples goes
on periodic binges of restoration: a Roman market
here, an Angevin castle there; you can do a lot with
2,500 years of history. One of the delights, then, of
walking around at random is finding such a place. I
stepped through the large portal of a building I had
never visited before and got one of those Wizard of Oz
moments (when Dorothy, in the MGM film, opens the door
of her house, which has just bounced down in Oz, and
the film suddenly goes from black and white to color).
I didn't start to sing, but I think I might have
gasped briefly. I was in the newly restored courtyard
of the old monastery of Saints Marcellino and Festo.
It was tidy and colorful, newly painted, with a
hypnotic series of arches running around the perimeter
of the courtyard. Also —at least when I was there—
there were some very short gardeners tending the ample
vegetation. That added to the Munchkin effect.
This monastery was
the result of the fusion in 1565 of two older, smaller
religious facilities housing, respectively, a Basilian
order and a Benedictine one, both of which go back to
the very hazy times of the independent Duchy of Naples
in the 8th century. It is yet another example of the
many monasteries in Naples
that have been converted to other use; it has been
affiliated with the University of
Naples since 1907 and currently houses part of the
Paleontology Department. Recently, funds from the
European Foundation for Regional Development have helped
to restore the courtyard to the state shown in the
photo. It is not particularly easy to find, but it's
worth the effort. It is accessible from via
Mezzocannone by walking east behind the main
university building down a small street named via
Orilia.
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