Villa Venusio, also known in Mugnano di Napoli as the villa of the Marquis or of the Marchioness, is a residence of the last decades of the eighteenth century, born as the home and farm of a family of the Neapolitan aristocracy. The sources trace its commissioning to the Capece Minutolo, princes of Canosa; it then passed to Ottavio Venusio, Marquis of Turi, from whom it takes its name. The Venusio used it above all in summer: Marquis Raffaele, the last male of the branch, lived there until his death with his daughter Emma. Its decline is dated to the years after the Second World War, when the villa was left to itself and suffered thefts and damage.
What to see
The villa has an anomalous position with respect to the streets of the centre: what is today Piazza Suor Maria Pia Brando stops in front of the façade and splits into Via Luca Giordano and Via Trieste, which follow its wall on both sides. From the street you can see the walls of yellow tuff from the Phlegraean Fields, the bell tower almost seventeen metres high, today held up only by two steel girders, the piperno frames of the windows of the main floor and the arches that link the staircase to the courtyard.
The layout is that of a gentleman's farmhouse: a long block with two projecting wings framing the entrance to the courtyard, two floors and an underground level. The ground floor served the farm work, in particular the processing of hemp; above was the owners' apartment, some ten rooms; the underground level held the burials of the Venusio. From the main entrance you go straight into the chapel of San Biagio, patron of Mugnano, wanted by the family about a century after the villa was built: it was blessed on 14 October 1872, enlarged in 1873 and consecrated in 1882.
Visiting
The villa is abandoned and can be looked at from outside. The town council of Mugnano di Napoli has bought it and plans to make it a ceremonial building, with the deconsecrated chapel as a hall for ceremonies and civil weddings and a public green area: it is worth asking at the town hall about the state of the works.
Our editors' tip
In Mugnano, faced with a husband and wife arguing heatedly, people still say that «they look like the marchioness and her husband». The saying comes from Emma Venusio, born in the villa: according to local tradition she married Luigi Sbano, her father's personal barber, overcoming the marquis's opposition, and the couple's quarrels became proverbial. The legend of the marchioness's ghost is also tied to the place.
