Opened on 9 December 2021 in the restored Casina del Boschetto pavilion in the heart of the Villa Comunale in Naples, the Darwin-Dohrn Museum, abbreviated DaDoM, is the first scientific cultural centre in Italy dedicated exclusively to marine biodiversity and the evolution of life in the oceans. The museum is run by the historic Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, founded in 1872 on the seafront a short walk away. The museum takes its name from the close intellectual friendship between two giants of nineteenth-century science. Anton Dohrn, the German zoologist who founded the Naples zoological station, was determined to demonstrate the truth of Charles Darwin theory of evolution through detailed study of marine life, and the two men corresponded extensively across the decades that followed. The exhibition itinerary is conceived as a long narrative on the evolution of life on Earth, beginning with the origin of the planet and the emergence of the first single-celled organisms in the primordial oceans, continuing through the great extinction events, the diversification of marine and terrestrial life and the slow emergence of the modern biosphere over hundreds of millions of years. Particular emphasis is placed on the marine world, both because life originated in the sea and because the oceans cover seventy-one per cent of the surface of the planet and contain more than ninety per cent of the habitable volume. Specimens, models and interactive displays show how organisms have adapted to every marine environment from sunlit coral reefs to the deep abyssal plains. The Casina del Boschetto itself is a small nineteenth-century pavilion in the Villa Comunale, the public seafront park laid out in the late eighteenth century. The recent restoration of the building, carried out with care for the original architectural features, has provided a luminous and intimate setting for the museum, with large windows looking out over the surrounding gardens. A small bookshop and educational programme rounds out the offer, with regular lectures, workshops for schools and partnerships with the nearby Stazione Zoologica Aquarium. Visits can be booked online or at the door, with combined tickets covering the museum and the historic aquarium that overlooks the Bay of Naples just a few hundred metres away.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Viale Dohrn 49, Naples, Italy

Website: https://szn.it/index.php/en/darwin-dohrn-museum

Opening Date: 09/12/2021