Guided tour of the Ruota degli Esposti in Naples and the Basilica dell'Annunziata
"Figlie d '' a Madonna" is a theatrical guided tour that will lead viewers to discover the Basilica dell'Annunziata in Naples and the Ruota degli Esposti.
Sunday October 28 2018 a special will be held guided tour that will make known to the spectators the history of the Complesso dell'Annunziata in Naples, where until the nineteenth century, the ancient custom ofabandonment of newborns within the so-called "Wheel of the exposed".
Lo spettacolo "Daughters of Madonna", by the cultural association NarteA and Teatro Insania, is part of the cultural review "1318 - 2018 The Great Annunciation: a beauty seven centuries long" designed to celebrate the seven hundred years from the foundation of the structure. The texts are written by Antimo Casertano, who plays in the play with Daniela Ioia and Antonio Agerola.
The history of the Basilica SS. Annunziata Maggiore and the "Wheel of the Exposed"
Visitors will be guided in the spaces of the Basilica SS. Annunziata Maggiore, visiting the church, the sacristy, the chapel of the treasury and the ancient courtyard of the hospital. This splendid basilica is part of a larger monumental complex also formed by a hospital, a convent, a hospice for foundlings and a "conservatory" for the exhibits. In this place abandoned children were welcomed, introduced by mothers and fathers from the outside in the famous "wheel", that is a cylindrical rotating wooden compass. Nurses intervened at each new "call", the sound of a bell, and collected the newborns who from that moment were called "children of the Madonna", "children of Nunziata" or simply "exposed".
Among the stories of the children welcomed inside the Basilica of the Annunciation there is also that of Vincenzo Gemito, one of the best Italian nineteenth-century sculptors, also abandoned in the Wheel of the exposed when he had only a few days of life and whose "moan" echoed within the walls of the courtyard of the Royal house of the Annunciation as happened for each new "Exposed".
The exhibition "1318 - 2018 The Annunziata Maggiore: a beauty lasting seven centuries"
The guided tour scheduled Sunday 28 October also inaugurates a series of events aimed at celebrating the seven hundred years since the foundation of the Basilica of the Annunciation Maggiore, which will allow to transmit the values of this very important monument of great spiritual value for our city.