Museum sights in Naples
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Certosa di San Martino
The high point (quite literally) of Neapolitan baroque, this stunning charterhouse, Certosa Di San Martino, is home to the Museo Nazionale di San Martino. Founded as a Carthusian monastery in the 14th century, the Certosa owes most of its present look to facelifts in the 16th and 17th centuries, the latter by baroque maestro Cosimo Fanzago. The church and the rooms that flank it contain a feast of frescoes and paintings by Naples’ greatest 17th-century artists – Francesco Solimena, Massimo Stanzione, Giuseppe de Ribera and Battista Caracciolo.
Adjacent to the church, the elegant Chiostro dei Procuratori is the smaller of the monastery’s two cloisters. A grand corridor…
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Centro Musei Scienze Naturali
Housed at the university, this fascinating natural science centre features four museums. The Museo della Mineralogia, one of Italy's most important, features some 30,000 minerals, meteorites and quartz crystals collected from as far afield as Madagascar.
A hit with kids is the Museo della Zoologia, with its colourful collection of butterflies, birds and creepy insects.
Across the courtyard, the Museo della Antropologia boasts an eclectic collection of prehistoric relics including a grinning Palaeolithic skeleton from Puglia and a cute Bolivian mummy. Dinosaur bones await at the nearby Museo di Paleontologia.
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Museo Archeologico Nazionale
The magnificent Museo Archeologico Nazionale houses one of the world’s finest collections of Graeco-Roman artefacts. It was originally a cavalry barracks and later the seat of the city’s university. The museum was established by the Bourbon king Charles VII in the late 18th century to house the rich collection of antiquities he had inherited from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese, as well as treasures that had been looted from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The museum also contains the Borgia collection of Etruscan and Egyptian relics.
To avoid getting lost in its rambling galleries (numbered in Roman numerals), invest €7.50 in the green quick-guide National Archaeological Mus…
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Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei
Bigger and better after a recent expansion, the Campi Flegrei’s Archaeological Museum brims with local finds, including a bewitching Nymphaeum, dredged up from underwater Baiae and skilfully reassembled. Monuments consecrated to the nymphs, nymphaeums were a popular spot to tie the proverbial knot. Other highlights include a bronze equestrian statue of the Emperor Domitian (altered to resemble his more popular successor Nerva upon his deposition) and finds from Rione Terra.
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Museo Civico
Museo Civico is spread across several halls on three floors. The 14th- and 15th-century frescoes and sculptures on the ground floor are of the most interest. The other two floors mostly display paintings, either by Neapolitan artists, or with Naples or Campania as subjects, covering the 17th to the early 20th centuries. Worth looking out for is Guglielmo Monaco’s 15th-century bronze door, complete with a cannonball embedded in it.
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Raccolta de Mura
Hidden among the chairs of the Bar del Professore is an entrance to an underpass, which leads to one of the city's best-kept secrets - a tiny gallery dedicated to Neapolitan song and dance. Hanging on its pink-tiled walls is a fetching collection of old music-hall programmes and posters, vintage photos and models of Punchinello (Naples' original version of Mr Punch). Stereo speakers provide a suitable background of warbling Neapolitan crooners.
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Città della Scienza
Part of a long-term redevelopment of the Bagnoli steelworks area 5km southeast of central Pozzuoli, the huge, interactive Città della Scienza takes the ‘geek’ out of science. It’s a particular hit with kids, who can get clued up on physics at the science gym, walk through constellations in the high-tech planetarium (€2) or just go plain silly pressing lots of funky buttons.
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Cappella e Museo del Monte di Pietà
An imposing 16th-century complex, the Cappella e Museo del Monte di Pietà was originally home to the Pio Monte di Pietà, an organisation set up to issue interest-free loans to impoverished debtors. Ironically, it now houses sumptuous paintings, embroidery and silverware belonging to the Banco di Napoli (Bank of Naples).
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Chiesa e Scavi di San Lorenzo Maggiore
A masterpiece of French Gothic architecture, the Chiesa e Scavi di San Lorenzo Maggiore dates to the late 13th century. Inside, note the impressive 14th-century mosaic-covered tomb of Catherine of Austria. You can also pass through to the cloisters of the neighbouring convent, where the poet Petrarch stayed in 1345.
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Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro
At the Duomo’s southern end, the Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro glimmers with gifts made to St Januarius over the centuries, from bronze busts and sumptuous paintings to silver ampullas and a gilded 18th-century sedan chair. Admission includes a multilingual audioguide.
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Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina
The Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina has a 6000-piece collection of European, Chinese and Japanese china, ivory and enamels; and Italian majolica.
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Museo di Etnopreistoria
The Museo di Etnopreistoria (in the Castel dell'Ovo) features a cool collection of prehistoric tools, fossils and ceramics.
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