Description
The San Martino National Museum stands inside the Certosa di San Martino, on the Vomero hill, and tells the history and life of Naples and its Kingdom. There are nativity scenes, carriages, ships, views of the city, paintings and porcelain, in the rooms of the old monks, with a panorama over the gulf.
The star is the nativity-scene section, where the Carthusians' kitchens used to be. The Cuciniello crib takes its name from the man who in 1879 gave the museum his monumental collection of shepherds, animals, lambs and still lifes, displayed in a scenic grotto. Beside it are tiny cribs, inside glass cases, with minuscule objects that make the scene realistic.
The Tavola Strozzi, in the historical section, is almost a photograph of Naples in the mid-fifteenth century, among the most important testimonies of how the city changed. Farther on are paintings of the plague of 1656, the inauguration of the Naples-Portici railway and memorabilia of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.
In the carriage hall the Carrozza degli Eletti is the oldest in the city, used in the Piedigrotta festival and the Corpus Domini procession. The naval section has a twenty-four-oar barge given to Charles of Bourbon and a caique presented by the Turkish sultan Selim III to Ferdinand IV.
The Prior's Quarter has eighteenth-century majolica floors, chinoiserie and paintings by Luca Giordano, Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi and Stanzione. On the second level the nineteenth-century gallery displays about 950 paintings of the Posillipo school, with Gigante, Morelli and De Nittis.
The museum was born in 1866, in the wake of Unification, when the Certosa was taken from the monks. The archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli wanted to fill it with testimonies of the life of Naples and the southern kingdoms.
In 1865 Fiorelli asked the mayor for the Carrozza degli Eletti to put it on public display, and it has been here ever since. From the gardens you enjoy the panorama of the gulf, with the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross along the wall.
The star is the nativity-scene section, where the Carthusians' kitchens used to be. The Cuciniello crib takes its name from the man who in 1879 gave the museum his monumental collection of shepherds, animals, lambs and still lifes, displayed in a scenic grotto. Beside it are tiny cribs, inside glass cases, with minuscule objects that make the scene realistic.
The Tavola Strozzi, in the historical section, is almost a photograph of Naples in the mid-fifteenth century, among the most important testimonies of how the city changed. Farther on are paintings of the plague of 1656, the inauguration of the Naples-Portici railway and memorabilia of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.
In the carriage hall the Carrozza degli Eletti is the oldest in the city, used in the Piedigrotta festival and the Corpus Domini procession. The naval section has a twenty-four-oar barge given to Charles of Bourbon and a caique presented by the Turkish sultan Selim III to Ferdinand IV.
The Prior's Quarter has eighteenth-century majolica floors, chinoiserie and paintings by Luca Giordano, Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi and Stanzione. On the second level the nineteenth-century gallery displays about 950 paintings of the Posillipo school, with Gigante, Morelli and De Nittis.
The museum was born in 1866, in the wake of Unification, when the Certosa was taken from the monks. The archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli wanted to fill it with testimonies of the life of Naples and the southern kingdoms.
In 1865 Fiorelli asked the mayor for the Carrozza degli Eletti to put it on public display, and it has been here ever since. From the gardens you enjoy the panorama of the gulf, with the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross along the wall.