April 12 – April 16, 2024
Arrive April 12 at your preferred time to be ready for an early start on April 13

1 traveler/single hotel room $1400

Includes four nights accommodation, ground transportation, museum admissions, one group dinner, and guided visits.

* Intimate group limited to 15 attendees
* Travel Insurance recommended
* Refunds available until March 1
* Airfare and additional meals not included

Join London-based Italian artist Chiara Ambrosio for a three-day journey—following Dante's model of heaven, hell and purgatory— through her fatherland, where she spent much of her childhood; a mercurial, volcanic land resting at the intersections of reality, myth, and theatre.

Everywhere in Naples, life and death are inextricably bound. This trip will explore the city from the vantage point of its complex and contradictory histories, made up of both flamboyant exuberance and more intimate traits and spaces, often hidden and out of reach.

Walking across Naples and its shadow spaces, it is easy to understand how so many incredible stories—from The Odyssey to The Aeneid to My Brilliant Friend—chose this volatile land as their location. Naples occupies a distinctive psycho-geographical position, framed by natural, historical and literary thresholds: the sea, the volcano, the fiery fields and crater lake Avernus (mythical gateway to Hades), the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum (ravaged by the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD), and the entrance to the Cumaean Sibyl’s cave, to mention but a few. The city itself rises above a specular, labyrinthine "other" space, that stretches beneath a large portion of the historic centre, and that has grown to represent a physical manifestation of a complex and troubled collective unconscious.

From spiritual and geographical heights, through purgatorial middle grounds, and all the way down into subterranean, troubled spaces, we will discover what makes this city so powerful, enchanting and heartbreaking by visiting and encountering churches, royal art and natural history collections,, catacombs, volcanoes, specially curated performances, and visits to contemporary artists’ studios.

All of this will be accompanied by visits to some of the best local restaurants! And please wear your walking shoes… much of this trip will be comprised of exploring the city as it is best seen—on foot, and there will be a bit of steep walking to reach the crater of Vesuvius.

DAY 1: PARADISO

Reggia di Capodimonte Art Museum – We will begin with a look at the city from above at the former summer residence of the Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies within the sanctuary of its forest lung, which today houses a world-class art collection. We will visit some Caravaggio, Titian, El Greco, and other masterpieces in the collection.

After this, we will walk down through Sanitá neighbourhood, and stop off to visit the famed Cappella di Sansevero, an ornate burial chapel highlighting the pursuits of Raimondo di Sangro and alchemists in Naples. Inside, we will marvel at the famed Veiled Christ (1753) and the so called anatomical machines, models of the arterial and venous system built on real human skeletons.

After a break for lunch, we will pay a visit to the Real Museo di Mineralogia, one of the world’s most spectacular collections of minerals, volcanic rocks, and gems, founded in 1801 by King Ferdinand IV of Naples. Next, we’ll visit the studio of artist Teresa Cervo who creates sculpture from papier mâché. We’ll also make a stop at La Chiesa del Gesu’ Nuovo/Cappella Moscati to experience the intersection of religion, medicine, and the miraculous. We’ll end the day with some time for independent wandering and shopping in San Gregorio Armeno and the city center.

DAY 2: PURGATORIO

We will begin the day with the Neapolitan cult of the souls of Purgatory at the church of San Pietro and Aram with Shaman Antonio Paciello. We will walk through Forcella and Spaccanapoli neighborhoods to visit the Chiesa di Santa Luciella and its skull with ears, and L’ospedale delle bambole/The doll hospital where the imagination goes to get healed.

Next we we’ll break for lunch, followed by a visit to the Museo Arti Sanitarie of the Incurables located in a 16^th century hospital and monastic complex and housing historical surgical instruments, a nativity scene with diseased figurines, and the Farmacia Storica degli Incurabili, a breathtaking 18th-century apothecary. Next up is a visit to the studio of artist Fabio Paolella, one of the best nativity artisans in the city, where you will able to purchase some of the most exquisite examples of this art.

Following, we’ll embark on a mural crawl through the Spanish Quarters with an open air studio visit to Cyop e Kaf and a look at the Maradona mural featuring secular saints for the outcasts. We will have an afternoon break for independent wandering and shopping and reconvene that evening for a Pulcinella puppet show at Casa Guarattelle, after which we’ll enjoy a group dinner.

DAY 3: INFERNO

We will begin our final day at the Catacombe di San Gaudioso, an underground, Christian burial site with skeleton and souls in purgatory frescoes dating back to the 17^th century. After this, we’ll enjoy a packed lunch on our way to the crater of the Mt Vesuvius where we’ll enjoy a special musical performance of Vesuvian double flutes and Tammorra, the traditional Neapolitan drum. Then we will return to our hotel for an optional final night stroll through the city.

Chiara Ambrosio is a London-based filmmaker, visual artist, and curator. Her work with the moving image, photography, painting, sound, and printed matter to explores the ways in which we perceive, remember, articulate, and preserve personal and collective histories and senses of place, and investigates how we may construct new rituals within secular societies through art. She is a long-term collaborator of musician Amanda Palmer and has collaborated with composers, poets, and anthropologists. Her work has been presented extensively both nationally and internationally at venues such as The Whitechapel Gallery, Anthology Film Archives and La Cinematheque Francaise.