The Cloister

Made in Cloister is located inside the small cloister of the Church of Santa Caterina in Formiello, whose large monumental complex is among the most important examples of Neapolitan Renaissance.

 

In the nineteenth century the complex was requisitioned by Ferdinando Borbone who supported its transformation into a factory for the production of wool and military uniforms. From that moment on, the Cloister and the area, later called Lanificio, change their intended use, becoming a factory that can employ - at full capacity - over four hundred people, indicating itself among the virtuous examples within the "industrialization program" era.

In the central part of the small sixteenth-century cloister a wooden roof is built which still gives it another element of charm: a marvelous central wooden truss, of exceptional size and structure, a rare example of Borbone industrial archeology maintained practically intact.

In 1861, with the Unification of Italy and the advent of the House of Savoy, in the Lanificio the orders of foreign exchange were suspended and the Sava family, which managed the business during that period, failed to reconvert production, declared bankruptcy and A very long trial begins with the new Kingdom of Italy, witnessed in the Historical Archives of the Banco di Napoli.

Quickly, what had initially been one of the most important monuments of Renaissance art and later an example of a virtuous industrial settlement, became an "abandoned" area.

 

A progressive and inexorable degradation of both the structures and the production and craft settlements that had, until then, connoted the entire area began.