The Museum
of Villa GiussoBy order of Duke Luigi Giusso, the ancient guesthouse of the Camaldolese monastery was transformed into a holiday residence for the duke’s family and his guests. Today, Villa Giusso preserves the authenticity of the past, with its rooms and historic kitchen that maintain intact the eighteenth-century charm, enriching the experience of those who visit the estate.
Adjacent to the residence, the museum tells the story of the place, which has undergone four centuries of transformations, evolving from hermitage to noble dwelling. The exhibition displays everyday objects of the Giusso family and historical testimonies, such as antique clothing, childhood games, sacred vestments, and period toiletry sets. Each object, displayed along a path that winds through the spaces of the former Camaldolese guesthouse, invites visitors to discover the nuances of nineteenth-century life and relive the past in a timeless atmosphere.
A Journey into the Past
Four centuries of history, four different ways of bringing a complex to life: hermitage, royal site, workshop, country residence. And each of them has left its mark, enriching the place: the canvases from the destroyed mother church, the noble chapel with its furnishings, the splendid majolica kitchen, the sacred vestments, Murat’s room, the ballroom, family memories.
The exhibition thus displays various objects from the daily life of the Giusso family, who in the nineteenth century chose to stay at Astapiana, one of their estates in Vico Equense, making it a residence for leisure and rest.
The path unfolds through the spaces located alongside the extradosed vaults of the former guesthouse of the Camaldolese settlement and allows visitors to almost touch the objects and materials on display.
The visit will first make you experience an enchanted atmosphere: time seems to have stopped as you discover in the attic rooms the everyday objects of life from a century ago: antique family clothing, children’s toys, personal hygiene necessities, and many other curiosities.
Daily life becomes a place of meaning production: to make perceptible, trace, and make comprehensible to everyone – through the material testimonies of nineteenth-century daily life – the meanings and values of that time; to discover the common thread of the gradual transformation that a place has undergone and read the stratification of events, through storytelling, which becomes even more significant and evocative because it is part of a lived daily experience.
It begins with the section dedicated to travel, necessary to reach the holiday destination, with enormous trunks, then there are those dedicated to the youngest guests, with toys and little clothes. Splendid is the section dedicated to clothing – featuring a wonderful evening gown – completed by a collection of hats, the personal hygiene department, with various toiletry sets, and, finally, the section of sacred objects.
The visit then ends in the area where ancient documents are displayed and preserved.
So then… let your imagination soar and have a wonderful journey into the past!
Open the Chest of Secrets
of the Giusso DukesA journey into the nineteenth-century past.
Experience the authentic atmosphere of a noble residence and discover its stories.