The Maddalena lunatic asylum was a famous

insane asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...

, established in 1813The North American Medical and Surgical Journal, 1831, Page 36. in

Aversa Aversa () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Caserta in Campania, southern Italy, about 24 km north of Naples. It is the centre of an agricultural district, the ''Agro Aversano'', producing wine and cheese (famous for the typical bu ...

, near

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. It was founded by

Joachim Murat Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...

, and for a time led by the

phrenologist Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...

Luigi Ferrarese Luigi Ferrarese (12 December 1795 – 8 August 1855) was an Italian physician and the leading proponent of phrenology in Italy in the nineteenth century.Yasgur's Homeopathic Dictionary, Jay Yasgur, 2003, p. 184. Biography He was born at Brienz ...

. It was "a celebrated lunatic asylum,"Cook's tourist's handbook for southern Italy, Rome, and Sicily by Thomas Cook, 1905, Page 219 both for its size and grandeur and for being "one of the earliest to discard the old system of harsh restraint." The physical facilities of the asylum were described as follows: It was divided into three distinct parts. The first was a converted former Franciscan convent, and was used to house male patients who were "affected with the different forms of lunacy, uncomplicated, however, with other nervous complaints." A second facility housed patients who, "in addition to mental derangement, were affected with epilepsy," and a third house was for female patients of all manner of diagnosis. Lady Blessington's early nineteenth-century praise for this institution in her "Idler in Italy" has been cited as contradicting

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

's thesis in Histoire de la Folie.

Edward Chaney Edward Chaney (born 1951) is a British cultural historian. He is Professor Emeritus at Solent University and Honorary Professor at University College London (School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) – Centre for Early Modern ...

, 'Philanthropy in Italy', "The Evolution of the Grand Tour" (2nd ed. 2000), p. 273, n.59.

References

{{coord missing, Italy 1813 establishments in Italy Hospitals established in 1813 Defunct hospitals in Italy Buildings and structures in the Province of Caserta Former psychiatric hospitals Joachim Murat