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Museum · Napoli (NA)

Anton Dohrn Zoological Station

  • Visit: about 1 h 30 min
Pictured: Napoli · Wolfgang Moroder · CC BY-SA 3.0 · resized and cropped

A historic marine research centre in the Villa Comunale, with Europe's oldest aquarium and frescoes by Hans von Marées.

In 1870 the City of Naples granted the naturalist Anton Dohrn, a follower of Darwin's theories, an area of the Villa Comunale to build a zoological station. Work began in 1872 and the project soon passed to the German Adolf von Hildebrand, who designed a building inspired by the Florentine Renaissance.On the first floor the painter Hans von Marées created evocative wall paintings, in a hall now used for conferences. The Station is still an important centre for research on marine life and houses Europe's oldest aquarium, with species from the Gulf of Naples. It is currently closed: we recommend admiring its architecture while strolling through the Villa.

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