NarteA returns to Palazzo Serra di Cassano on Saturday, April 13th at 6:00 PM, with the theatrical visit Domenico Cirillo – The Revolutionary Mind, which will lead the audience to discover one of the most controversial figures of the Neapolitan revolution of 1799.
Domenico Cirillo, a doctor and botanist, despite his role as a philanthropist in the Parthenopean Republic, was led to death in Mercato Square on October 29, 1799. The guided tour will pass through the spaces of Palazzo Serra di Cassano, still today a meeting place for intellectuals, thanks to the presence of the Italian Institute of Philosophical Studies, founded in 1975, and located in the elegant rooms of the palace since the eighties.
The texts and direction are by Febo Quercia, featuring Mario Di Fonzo, Mariachiara Falcone, Pietro Juliano, Alessio Sica on stage. The guide Matteo Borriello will lead the audience through the rooms of the historic building.
Purchased by the Serra di Cassano family at the end of the 17th century, the palace has undergone numerous interventions, such as the inclusion of the famous staircase designed by the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice at the beginning of the 18th century. The historical apartment still houses frescoes made by Giuseppe and Gioacchino Magri; in the large entrance hall, there are stories of Scipio Africanus painted by Giacinto Diano; in the Chapter Room, the fake architectures by Giovan Battista Natali.
The building is located between two parallel streets, set on different levels, Monte di Dio street and Egiziaca street, on the latter there was once the main entrance, closed since August 20, 1799, when the young Duke Gennaro Serra, an active participant in the revolution later overturned by the Bourbon monarchy, was taken from the Palace by the police of Ferdinand IV. Like him, many intellectuals of the time, among whom the name of Domenico Cirillo stands out.
In the halls of the historic palace, where the pain of the Serra di Cassano family still echoes, the story written by Febo Quercia will be staged. Domenico Cirillo, Admiral Nelson, the famous Emma Hamilton, and other "voices of history", will lead visitors to discover the phases of the so-called "Ephemeral Revolution" and how the king's doctor found himself, despite himself, involved in the bloody revenge that the Bourbons exercised on the revolutionaries. An unheeded plea, passed between the hands of Lady Hamilton, is the basis for the different interpretations of Cirillo's last moments, analyzed over the years by historians like Benedetto Croce who, like many, sought to shed new light on a complex figure like that of Cirillo.