Description
The Naples Aquarium is inside the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, in the Villa Comunale, between Via Caracciolo and the Riviera di Chiaia: it is the oldest aquarium in Italy, opened in 1874. You can see the fish, mollusks and plants of the Gulf of Naples, and, on the first floor, a hall frescoed in 1873 by German painters.
The aquarium tanks number about thirty, with over two hundred marine species of animals and plants, mostly from the Gulf of Naples. In the central hall they are lined up side by side in a horseshoe on both walls, while in the west hall there is a small museum corner with fish and fossils found in the gulf over the years.
There are also sea turtles, mostly loggerheads, passing guests: they arrive wounded from the sea and wait to be set free again.
On the first floor is the frescoed hall of the historic library.
It was painted in four months, in 1873, by the German painter Hans von Marées, with the young sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand.
He chose the Neapolitan fishermen he had around him: men loading nets onto a boat, others rowing standing up, three men of different ages in an orange grove, representing the ages of life.
On the east wall, the most curious fresco shows the aquarium still under construction, with some people seated around a little table: among them the founder Anton Dohrn and his friend Charles Grant, an English writer, who took care of all the practical problems in Naples.
The history of the aquarium begins with a money problem. Dohrn, a German zoologist and fervent supporter of Darwin's theories, wanted to create a marine research center in Naples, but he had to pay a permanent assistant.
After seeing the recently opened aquarium in Berlin, he thought that a public aquarium would bring in the right revenue, in a big city full of tourists.
He convinced the city to give him a plot on the shore, in the Villa Comunale, free of charge, and undertook to build everything at his own expense: the foundations were laid in March 1872, and the building was finished in September 1873. The aquarium's construction site was directed by an English engineer, William Alford Lloyd, who had already worked on the aquariums of Hamburg and London.
The other idea was to rent out workplaces: governments, universities and foundations sent their researchers to Naples, who had everything they needed and complete freedom. When Dohrn died, in 1909, more than two thousand scientists had worked here. More than twenty Nobel Prize winners have passed through the laboratories.
Don't miss
• The tanks with the fauna of the Gulf.
• The hall frescoed by von Marées.
• The sea turtles.
Did you know?
• Darwin approved Dohrn's project: a thick correspondence remains.
• Salvatore Lo Bianco joined the Station at 14 as an attendant and became a curator of international fame.
• The library was born in 1873 with the first books donated by Dohrn.
The aquarium tanks number about thirty, with over two hundred marine species of animals and plants, mostly from the Gulf of Naples. In the central hall they are lined up side by side in a horseshoe on both walls, while in the west hall there is a small museum corner with fish and fossils found in the gulf over the years.
There are also sea turtles, mostly loggerheads, passing guests: they arrive wounded from the sea and wait to be set free again.
On the first floor is the frescoed hall of the historic library.
It was painted in four months, in 1873, by the German painter Hans von Marées, with the young sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand.
He chose the Neapolitan fishermen he had around him: men loading nets onto a boat, others rowing standing up, three men of different ages in an orange grove, representing the ages of life.
On the east wall, the most curious fresco shows the aquarium still under construction, with some people seated around a little table: among them the founder Anton Dohrn and his friend Charles Grant, an English writer, who took care of all the practical problems in Naples.
The history of the aquarium begins with a money problem. Dohrn, a German zoologist and fervent supporter of Darwin's theories, wanted to create a marine research center in Naples, but he had to pay a permanent assistant.
After seeing the recently opened aquarium in Berlin, he thought that a public aquarium would bring in the right revenue, in a big city full of tourists.
He convinced the city to give him a plot on the shore, in the Villa Comunale, free of charge, and undertook to build everything at his own expense: the foundations were laid in March 1872, and the building was finished in September 1873. The aquarium's construction site was directed by an English engineer, William Alford Lloyd, who had already worked on the aquariums of Hamburg and London.
The other idea was to rent out workplaces: governments, universities and foundations sent their researchers to Naples, who had everything they needed and complete freedom. When Dohrn died, in 1909, more than two thousand scientists had worked here. More than twenty Nobel Prize winners have passed through the laboratories.
Don't miss
• The tanks with the fauna of the Gulf.
• The hall frescoed by von Marées.
• The sea turtles.
Did you know?
• Darwin approved Dohrn's project: a thick correspondence remains.
• Salvatore Lo Bianco joined the Station at 14 as an attendant and became a curator of international fame.
• The library was born in 1873 with the first books donated by Dohrn.