| Maddalena Lunatic Asylum | |
| Location: | Aversa |
| State: | Province of Caserta |
| Country: | Italy |
| Type: | Specialist |
| Speciality: | Psychiatric hospital |
| Opened: | 1813 |
The Maddalena lunatic asylum was a famous insane asylum, established in 1813[1] in Aversa, near Naples, Italy.[1] It was founded by Joachim Murat, and for a time led by the phrenologist Luigi Ferrarese. It was "a celebrated lunatic asylum,"[2] [3] both for its size and grandeur and for being "one of the earliest to discard the old system of harsh restraint."[2]
The physical facilities of the asylum were described as follows: It was divided into three distinct parts. The first was a converted former Franciscan convent, and was used to house male patients who were "affected with the different forms of lunacy, uncomplicated, however, with other nervous complaints."[1] A second facility housed patients who, "in addition to mental derangement, were affected with epilepsy,"[1] and a third house was for female patients of all manner of diagnosis.[1] Lady Blessington's early nineteenth-century praise for this institution in her "Idler in Italy" has been cited as contradicting Michel Foucault's thesis in Histoire de la Folie.[4]