Inside the Villa there is the Aquarium, the most ancient in Europe, the best way to discover the Mediterranean sea fauna. It was founded by the German naturalist Antonio Dohrn and its success was determined by the innovative system for pumping water directly from the sea into the cisterns where the captured exemplars were kept and that was, then, imitated in many other aquariums. The aquarium is a very fascinating place, very different from the modern ones, because of its sombre atmosphere, in which the 23 tanks on display use volcanic rocks to create a natural setting and are chiefly illuminated by daylight from the skylights in the roof. All the fauna is from the Bay of Naples, that is very rich in marine life. There you will admire Gorgonie, underwater flowers, polyps, moray eels hiding themselves in Roman amphorae and crabs lurking in the gloom, lobsters, coral sand even calamaries (very delicate specimen that generally do not survive in captivity). Your children will be certainly fascinated by the particular atmosphere of this aquarium, able to plunge them in the depth of the sea with its silence and succession of darkness and light. by Giusy
