An art treasure at the service of science. The historic Pharmacy of the Incurable has been like this since its foundation, an integral part of the complex which included originally the Hospital of Santa Maria del Popolo of the Incurable and the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, near the upper decumanus, in the heart of Naples.
Where five hundred years ago, between 1520 and 1522 the hospital and the church were built on the initiative of a noblewoman Maria Lorenza Longo, who wanted to contribute to the care of several patients suffering from syphilis in the city. The pharmacy arrived a century later, on the occasion of a first renovation of the original edifice, but the final arrangement happened between 1744 and 1750, in place of the Sixteenth century pharmacy, bases on designs by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, while Bartolomeo Vecchione directed the works with the funds made available by Antonio Maggiocca, one of the regents of the hospital. And soon the pharmacy distinguished itself for the quality it reached in the production of medicinal herbs and for its research activity, appreciated by the scientists of the most varied origins.
Since then, the pharmacy has kept unchanged its characteristics. It consists of the laboratory and the boardroom. In the smaller room, the six floors cabinets with sculpted decorations and all the furnishings, including the central table, are in precious walnut briar, the work by the cabinet maker Agostino Fucito. In the display cases there are phials and ampoules in Murano glass and 420 vases (originally they were 480) of polychrome ceramics with biblical and allegorical scenes by Lorenzo Salandra and Donato Massa, the author of the famous majolica cloister of Santa Chiara, who also created the precious floor of the pharamcy. The recent restoration has brought back to its place, on the ceiling of the boardroom, the 1750 painting also by Pietro Bardellino representing Machaon healing a wounded warrior.
The pharmacy is part of the Museum of the Sanitary Arts, which also includes the areas of the former Convent of the Converted, where ancient decorations are exhibited, as well as silverware, sanitary tools and historical documents. The Doctors Garden (Orto dei Medici), where the medicinal plants used in the past have been reintroduced, in addition to the courtyard with two fountains, the stairways and the “pozzo dei pazzi” (“the well of the mad”). The church of Santa Maria del Popolo is a must-see, with a single hall and chapels (the Montalto Chapel is of particular value), with Baroque stuccos and marble decorations on the altars. Near the main one, there is a Renaissance funeral monument by Giovanni da Nola. In the church you can see seventeenth-eighteenth-century frescoes by Agostino Beltrano, Giuliano Bugiardini, Marco Cardisco, Francesco De Mura, Marco Pino, Carlo Sellitto and Giovanni Battista De Rossi, who is also the author of the frescoes of the sacristy.
The original complex was also formed by the church of Santa Maria dei Bianchi della Giustizia, the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie Maggiore in Caponapoli with the cloister, the Complex of Santa Maria della Consolazione, and the church of Santa Maria di Gerusalemme with the cloister of the convent of the Thirtyt-three.
Copyright video, foto e testi © 2020