Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua Santa Maria Capua Vetere (CE)
15 June – 5 November 2019
Inauguration Saturday 15 June, hours 17.00
Saturday, April 15, at 17.00, will be inaugurated at the Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua the exhibition Mitra at Capua Vetere between East and west dedicated to the eastern cults and in particular to the solar cult of Mitra, Cosmic divinity of Indo-Iranian origin, the whose significant presence in Capua is well testified by one of the most important mithraea of the West. The event, organized by the Polo Museale della Campania, directed by Anna imposing, is placed in a project of valorisation of Santa Maria Capua Vetere and its remarkable patrimony, whose emblematic monuments, Mithraeum, Amphitheatre and museum, are included in the circuit Archaeological of ancient Capua. The Mithraeum, place of the mystery cult "under the city" where the ritual ceremonies were held and the exhibition dedicated to the Oriental cults, in the Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua, will be the centers from which will unravel performing activities programmed by the municipality Within the POC Campania 2014-2020 "City under the city".
The exhibition is curated by Ida Gennarelli, director of the Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua, Mitreo and Ampano, and by Serenella Ensoli, professor of classical Archaeology of the Department of Letters and Cultural heritage of the University of L. Vanvitelli. The exhibition project, coordinated by the arch. Paolo Mascilli Migliorini, director of the Royal Palace of Naples and architect of the site, has seen the intervention of international sponsors, prestigious companies committed to support cultural projects with the intent to arouse the interest of the new generations. Graphics eMotion, based in Montreal, specializing in the realization of immersive interactive and experiential environments and installations with projects distributed worldwide and CIAL, an Italian company specializing in lighting infrastructures and Multimedia systems for museum installations. Among their works we recall in 2017 "Pompeii and the Greeks" and in 2018 the extraordinary holographic spectacle "blood and Arena" at the Colosseum that has amazed millions of spectators. For this exhibition they designed the reconstruction of the scale to the true of the mithraeum of S. Maria Capua Vetere, realizing also an immersive video projection in 3 D and a visual and emotional path of the Mithraea along the Via Appia from Capua to Rome. The collaboration between the two companies opened the way to new perspectives, the large exhibition hall that hosted last year the exhibition "Hannibal a Capua" is completely transformed.
The exhibition will therefore have an even stronger value and will be a reason for study and scientific debate for the novelties that will be in the light during the intervention. A particular focus will be devoted to Tauroctonia, the sacrifice of Taurus, whose death generates cosmic fecundity and promises salvation, and the extraordinary megalography of the mithraeum of Capua. The comparison with the depications in Campania and Lazio will be a sort of journey to discover this oriental deity. A journey that begins at Delo, the most important port of the Aegean from which, through Puteoli – Delus minor – come to Campania slaves and merchants, not alone but with their cultures and their own gods, who mingle and confuse themselves with the host of the Roman deities. The exhibition shows the Tauroctonie of Cales, also by MANN and never exhibited, and that coming from the Villa dei Quintilii The exhibition also intends to affirm the crucial role of the colony of Capua, home to one of the most important gladiatorial schools, and the Strong connection of the Mithraic cult with the Gladiators, represented by the figure of Traianus in the guise of Mitra. Significant in this regard is the image of the Phrygian deity among the busts of the arch-keys of the Campano Amphitheatre, which reproduced here, intends together with the model of the Campano Amphitheatre, reconnect the exhibition to the places of the ancient city now included in the Archaeological circuit of ancient Capua.