Location: Gulf of Naples Map
Constructed: 13th century by Charles I Anjou
Castel dell'Ovo is located on the Megaride island of volcanic tuff
in the Gulf of Naples in Italy. The fortress' name means "an egg"
and it gets it from the Medieval legend that ancient Roman poet
Virgil put an egg in the center of the island to support the
military fortifications. Today the island became a peninsula after a
causeway was extended to connect with the mainland.
The
history of the island and Castel dell'Ovo dates back to the times of
an ancient Greeks who found their colony on the island in the 6th
century. At a certain time Megaride island served as a villa of
Roman patrician Lucius Licinius Lucullus that was famous for its
abundant feasts. Additionally his personal resort housed an
expansive library, garden of peach trees exported from Persia and
even an eel farm. In the middle of the fifth century the island was
fortified by Emperor Valentinian III. The last Roman Emperor Romulus
Augustus was sent to Castel dell'Ovo into exile after being deposed
by his own general Odoacer. Eugippius, a disciple of Saint Severinus
of Noricum, found a monastic community that existed here till the
early Medieval times. Dukes of Naples razed the monastery along with
remains of Licinius' villa, but the abbey reappeared until being
finally destroyed by Roger the Norman in 1140. The first military
fortifications were established here by the Norman in the 12th
century. This was followed by Charles I Anjou who erected a castle
here in the 13th century. The castle dell'Ovo became the official
seat of the Royal Chamber and the State Treasury. In the end of the
15th century the castle underwent massive reconstruction due to
heavy damages from fighting during the Italian Wars (1494–1559).
Castle dell' Ovo houses the ancient chapel of the Savior as well as
Museum of ancient history. Under the gate Porta Santa Lucia there
are many fish restaurants if you will get hungry, with the fish
delivered straight from the sea.
Origins of the name
An ancient legend has it
that its name derives from having the Latin poet Virgil hidden in
the dungeons of the building a magical egg that had the power to
keep the entire fortress standing. Its breaking, however, would have
caused not only the collapse of the castle, but also a series of
disastrous catastrophes in the city of Naples. During the fourteenth
century, at the time of Joan I, the castle suffered extensive damage
due to the partial collapse of the arch on which it rests and, to
prevent panic from spreading among the population for the alleged
future catastrophes that would hit the city , the queen had to swear
that she had replaced the egg.
In truth, this was one of the
many 'spells' that were attributed in the Middle Ages to the figure
of Virgil, fame stemming from the fact that the poet lived for a
long time in Naples, a city he loved very much and in which he had
become a well-known and authoritative character and in to whom the
eternal popular credulity had made him a man capable of superhuman
powers, powers which, apparently, he did not bother to deny;
evidently he liked being considered a magician. As Bartolomeo
Caracciolo known as Carafa (1300-1362) tells in chap. XVII of his
Chroniche de la inclyta cità de Napole etc. - a history of Naples
which was initially erroneously attributed to Giovanni Villani as it
reported some passages, actually Virgil, who became a friend of the
then magister civium ('mayor') of the city, a nephew of the emperor
Octavian Augustus of name Marcello, he had been hired by these as
his adviser for the reclamation work that urged the city, an urban
agglomeration then very infected because it lacked sewers and
oppressed by swampy areas, therefore infested by rodents and
pestilence-causing insects; Virgil, a good connoisseur of the
subject because he was educated in this above all by the teachings
of his father, who had been a landowner, farmer, beekeeper and
breeder, directed and guided vast and multiple reclamation works,
even if, as recalled by the location of his tomb , was remembered
above all for having promoted the original excavation (or
enlargement) of the long underground tunnel that led from Mergellina
towards Bagnoli and which avoided travelers both the tiring climb
over the Posillipo hill and alternatively the long detour to use the
other underground passage, that of Seiano, to reach which, however,
it was necessary to cover the entire coast of Posillipo. Since all
those works had great and extraordinary success, having eliminated
so many inconveniences that had made the civil life of the
Neapolitans much more difficult for centuries, they began to
consider Virgilio a kind of magician, to this perhaps also induced
by belonging to the family of his mother to the gens Magia. But this
rumor of the egg in the castle actually came out not before the Late
Middle Ages, probably invented to explain in a fantastic way how the
Castrum Lucullianum had earned that popular name of 'castle of the
egg', a name that is already read in the documents of the thirteenth
century relating to the reign of Charles I of Anjou and due to its
ovular shape, a shape that was given to it by Ruggiero the Norman in
the previous century when this king had rebuilt it on the
pre-existing ruins. The aforementioned Carafa reported that legend
in great detail and together with several others concerning Virgil
(in the time of the dicto Virgilio was a castle built in the sea on
a rock as per fino mò; and which he called 'the Castello Marino'
ouero ' of the sea '… Ib. Chap. XXXI).
Unfortunately, historical truths are sometimes
forgotten and therefore lost, while legends are very long-lived and
often even historians take them into consideration; but fortunately
the Neapolitan archivists of the nineteenth century were qualified
scholars and the documents they studied said that it had been the
particular shape of the castle - later officially called 'di S.
Salvatore' because it contained a church dedicated to that saint -
and did not claim 'magic 'of Virgil to have given birth to that
popular name. See in this regard Angelo Antonio Scotto (Syllabus
Membranorum ad Regiae Siclae Archivum pertinum. Vol. I, pp. 35-36.
Naples, 1824), who, citing doc. n. 4 of Issue VII, in note 2 he
writes:… Immo temporis progressu factum est, ut ab OVI figure (nam
deridicula est Villani Iohannis fabella Lib. II. Chap. 3o.) CASTRUM
OVI ipsum Neapolitani nuncuparint, quod et adhuc auditur. See also
Mariano de Laurentiis (Antiquitates Campaniae Felicis a Mariano de
Laurentiis elucubratae. Pars altera, pp. 146-150. Naples, 1826), who
writes: Gulielmus autem I. Malus nomine arcem Normandicam ibi
aedificavit anno MCLXX; hinc ex ea studded Ovi Castrum ab insulae
rotunditate audiit. Iam ante insula Maior, et Salvatoris insula per
patrios auctores fuit compellata, ut inter alios probat Claritus
loco ante quoted pluribus scriptorum Medii Ævi auctoritatibus. But
officially it was called Castrum Salvatóris ad Mare ...
The
curiosity was that the Spaniards of the Gran Capitán Gonçalo
Hernandez de Còrdova y Aguilar who in 1503 conquered the Kingdom of
Naples, hearing the castle called 'Castel dell'Ovo', understood, due
to the almost equal pronunciation, Castillo del Lobo ('Castle del
Lupo ') and so for a couple of centuries they continued to call him
in Spain and Flanders (... Castel del Ovo: a que corruto or name,
çhaman Castel del Lobo. In Joam de Castro, Discurso da vida do
semper bem vindo et apparecido Rey Dom Sebastiam etc. P. 4 verso
Paris, 1602.
History
Megaride and Castrum Lucullanum
The castle stands on the tuff islet of Megaride (Greek: Megaris), a
natural offshoot of Mount Echia, which was joined to the mainland by
a thin isthmus of rock. This is the place where Parthènope was
founded in the eighth century BC, by the hand of Cuma.
In the
1st century BC Lucio Licinio Lucullus acquired a very large fund in
the area (which according to some hypotheses ranged from
Pizzofalcone to Pozzuoli) and on the island he built a splendid
villa, Villa di Licinio Lucullo, which was equipped with a very rich
library, moray eel farms and peach trees imported from Persia, which
for the time were a novelty along with the cherry trees that the
general had sent from Cerasunto. The memory of this property
persisted in the name of Castrum Lucullanum that the site maintained
until the late Roman age.
In darker times for the Empire -
mid-fifth century - the villa was fortified by Valentinian III and
it fell to the fate of hosting the deposed last emperor of Rome,
Romulus Augustus, in 476.
Subsequently the death of Romolo
Augusto, on the islet of Megaride and on Mount Echia, already at the
end of the 5th century, Basilian monks settled, called by Pannonia
by a matron Barbara with the relics of the abbot Severino. Initially
allocated in scattered cells (called "Basilian hermitages"), the
monks adopted the Benedictine rule in the seventh century and
created an important scriptorium (probably also having available
what remained of the Lucullian library).
The Middle Ages: the
Duchy of Naples, the Norman, Swabian and Angevin kings
In 872,
the Saracens imprisoned the bishop Atanasio of Naples on the islet
called San Salvatore at the time, but the joint effort of the fleets
of the Duchy of Naples and the Republic of Amalfi made it possible
to free the bishop and drive out the Muslims. The convent complex,
however, was razed to the ground at the beginning of the 10th
century by the Dukes of Naples, to prevent the Saracens from
fortifying themselves again, using it as a base for the invasion of
the city, while the monks withdrew to Pizzofalcone. In a document
dated 1128, a fortification is again mentioned on the site, called
Arx Sancti Salvatoris from the church of San Pietro that the monks
had built there. Witness of the settlement of the Basilian monks is
precisely what remains of this place of worship, founded by the
monks themselves and whose first records date back to 1324. The only
significant architectural element left is the entrance preceded by
the large arches of the loggia.
Ruggiero the Norman, conquering Naples in 1140
built the castle. The residential use of the castle, however, was
exploited only on a few occasions since, with the completion of
Castel Capuano, all the lines of development and trade to land were
moved there. With the Normans, a program of systematic fortification
of the site began, which had its first bulwark in the Normandy
tower, and was the one on which the flags flew.
With the
passage of the kingdom to the Swabians through Costanza d'Altavilla,
Castel dell'Ovo was further fortified in 1222 by Frederick II, who
had other towers built - Torre di Colleville, Torre Maestra and
Torre di Mezzo. In those years, the castle became a palace and a
state prison.
King Charles I of Anjou moved the court to
Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino). However, he kept in castel dell'Ovo
- which in this period began to be called chateau de l'Oeuf or
castrum Ovi enchanted - the assets to be kept in the best fortified
place: he therefore made it the residence of the family, making
numerous restorations and changes, and kept the royal treasure
there. In this period, as a state prison, Corradino di Svevia was
imprisoned in the castle before being beheaded in the market square,
and the children of Manfredi and Queen Elena Ducas.
After a
seismic event that in 1370 had caused the natural arch that
constituted the isthmus to collapse, Queen Giovanna had it rebuilt
in masonry, also restoring the Norman buildings. After living in the
castle as a sovereign, the queen was imprisoned here by her infidel
nephew Carlo di Durazzo, before ending up in exile in Muro Lucano.
The Aragonese, the viceroys, the Bourbons
Alfonso V of
Aragon, initiator of the Aragonese domination in Naples (1442 -
1503), made further renovations to the castle, enriching the royal
palace, restoring the pier, strengthening the defensive structures
and lowering the towers.
His son Ferrante I succeeded him to
the throne, received looting by the French militias, he had to
bombard it with artillery in order to regain possession of the
castle.
The castle was further damaged by the French under
Louis XII and the Spanish by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, who
overthrew on behalf of Ferdinand II of Aragon, King of Spain, the
last Aragonese king of Naples. In 1503 the siege by Ferdinand the
Catholic definitively demolished what remained of the towers. The
castle was then again and massively renovated, taking the shape we
see today. The weapons systems changed - from throwing and jet
weapons to bombards - the octagonal towers were rebuilt, the walls
thickened, and the defensive structures were oriented towards the
land, and no longer towards the sea. The French were defeated twice,
in Cerignola and on the Garigliano, and the complete conquest of the
entire Kingdom of Naples in favor of Spain took place.
During
the reign of the Spanish Viceroys and later the Bourbons, the castle
was fortified even more with batteries and two drawbridges. The
structure completely lost its function of royal residence and from
the eighteenth century also the title of "royal factory", and was
used as a shelter and military outpost - from which the Spaniards
bombed the city during the Masaniello uprisings - and in prison,
where he was imprisoned. among others the philosopher Tommaso
Campanella before being sentenced to death, and later some Jacobins,
Carbonari and liberals including Carlo Poerio, Luigi Settembrini,
Francesco De Sanctis.
From the unification of Italy to today
During the period of the so-called "Risanamento", which changed the
face of Naples after the unification of Italy, a project developed
by the Association of literate scientists and artists in 1871
envisaged the demolition of the castle to make way for a new
district. However, that project was not implemented and the building
remained in the possession of the state property and practically in
a state of neglect, until the restoration began in 1975.
Today it is annexed to the historic district of Santa Lucia and can
be visited. In the large rooms, exhibitions, conferences and events
take place. At its base stands the tourist port of the "Borgo
Marinari", animated by restaurants and bars, the historical seat of
some of the most prestigious Neapolitan nautical clubs.