M'ILLUMINO D'IMMENSO. The staircase of palazzo Cassano Ayerbo d’Aragona - Editor Ornella Zerlenga

The exceptionality of the case presented in this monograph includes the presence of an authoritative expert: Alfonso Gambardella, the greatest international scholar of the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice, to whom the project of the staircase in Palazzo Cassano Ayerbo d’Aragona in Naples refers.

The archival sources that document the transformations of the noble palace, currently Casa Morra - Archivio d’Arte Contemporanea, and the name of the architect who conceived its impressive eighteenth-century staircase are uncertain. The grandeur of the staircase consists of being both materially and immaterially ‘out of scale’, a narrative event of boundless emotion in the ‘immense’ concept of architectural space. With a hexagonal plan, the design of the planimetric and altimetric layout is the result of the skilful ability of the designer to articulate elementary geometric forms in a plastic and dynamic space, vibrating with structural tensions as well as multiple symmetrical and asymmetrical visions.
These are all elements that can be traced back to Ferdinando Sanfelice.

This book originates from the interest in the staircase of Palazzo Cassano Ayerbo d’Aragona of both the editor, Ornella Zerlenga, as well as the famous Neapolitan gallerist, Giuseppe Morra. The research is developed on the basis of the memorandum of understanding signed between the Fondazione Morra and the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design of the University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’ to not only collaborate scientifically, but also to carry out initiatives that will positively influence the cultural growth of the territory.

In this sense, the surveying and representation of the grandiose staircase of Palazzo Cassano Ayerbo d’Aragona, in its spatial unity and methodological systematization of monographic research, was carried out for the first time in 2017 by a research team of the aforementioned Department, scientifically coordinated by Ornella Zerlenga with Vincenzo Cirillo and undertaken by Gianluca Delle Rose, Brigida Di Costanzo, Gessica Friello.
Introduced by the institutional roles, Tersa Carnevale (President of the Fondazione Morra), Giuseppe Paolisso (Rector UniCampania), Luigi Maffei (Director of the Department), this book includes contributions by Pasquale Persico, economist and co-creator of the social redevelopment plan “Il Quartiere dell’Arte”; Massimo Pica Ciamarra, co-author of the reuse project of the building open to the neighbourhood; Igor Todisco whose ‘points of view’ conclude the description of a spatially changing staircase.