The Maddalena lunatic asylum was a famous

insane asylum The lunatic asylum, insane asylum or mental asylum was an institution where people with mental illness were confined. It was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from and eventually replace ...

, 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 dome ...

, near

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. It was founded by

Joachim Murat Joachim Murat ( , also ; ; ; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French Army officer and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the military titles of Marshal of the ...

, and for a time led by the phrenologist Luigi Ferrarese. 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 History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

's thesis in Histoire de la Folie. Edward Chaney, 'Philanthropy in Italy', "The Evolution of the Grand Tour" (2nd ed. 2000), p. 273, n.59.

References

{{reflist 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