Sant’Eframo Nuovo: from Monastery to former OPG

The monastery of Sant’Eframo Nuovo is also known as the monastery of the Immaculate Conception at Fonseca (Immacolata Concezione a Fonseca), and it is a monumental building in Naples located in the Materdei district, more precisely on Via Matteo Renato Imbriani. The history of this building is a very troubled one: no one could ever imagine, in fact, what it houses today.

by Alessia Giannino

The monastery of Sant’Eframo Nuovo is also known as the monastery of the Immaculate Conception at Fonseca and is a monumental building in Naples located in the Materdei district, more precisely on Via Matteo Renato Imbriani.

The history of this building is a very troubled one: no one could ever imagine, in fact, what it houses today.

History

Construction of the building began in 1572 on land purchased by the Capuchin friars from Gianfrancesco di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, thanks to donations from Francesca Carafa, a Neapolitan noblewoman. The original plan called for the construction of a vast complex: indeed, the building was meant to be the main seat of the Capuchin friars minor, but this idea was abandoned and the project scaled back. Despite this change of purpose, the monastery is nonetheless imposing, made up of 160 rooms for the friars, two cloisters, a garden, courtyards and several communal areas. Next to the monastery stands the church of the same name, founded in 1661.

In 1840 the building was damaged by a fire that destroyed everything, including the frescoes on the vault, the work of Filippo Andreoli. The church, however, was restored in a very short time and, as early as 1841, it reopened, characterised by the neoclassical style of the period. The monastery too was later restored, but only a few years afterwards, in 1866, it was suppressed due to the anticlerical policy of the Kingdom of Italy and converted into a barracks.

After the First World War, in 1925, the complex was turned into a judicial psychiatric hospital, undergoing several changes to adapt it as best as possible to its new function. Since 2008 “Sant’Eframo” has no longer been housed in the monastic complex, having been moved to the Naples-Secondigliano Penitentiary Centre.

In 2013 the judicial psychiatric hospitals were abolished, and on 31 March 2015 they closed for good. Today the building standing on Via Matteo Renato Imbriani is occupied by the Self-Organised University Collective, which gave rise to the occupied former OPG Je so’ pazzo (‘I’m mad’), with the aim of letting Naples and Neapolitans reclaim a asset of their own and launch social initiatives and projects.