The Coral Museum in Ravello
The Amalfi Coast boasts a good number of museums, among which the Coral Museum in Ravello (located just over 15 kilometers from our boutique hotel) is undoubtedly worth a visit. Extraordinary and unique, it is based at the Camo factory, where this precious treasure of the sea has been handcrafted since the 1950s.
Normally we tend to think of coral as a stone because of its texture and hardness, but it is actually not. Also called the tree of the sea, it is a limestone formation with nearly 90 percent calcium carbonate, material made up of the skeleton of tiny marine animals called polyps (not to be confused with octopuses, the cephalopods with eight tentacles). There are thousands of species of corals, each one different from the next and with spectacular colors due to pigments in their cells or algae living on them. The one used in Western jewelry is mainly fished along the African shore (from Morocco to Tunisia), along the coast of western Sardinia and in Spain. One of the most sought-after is Corallium rubrum, which is red in color and unblemished. According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, IV, 740-752), red coral was born from the blood of Medusa, one of the Gorgons, when Perseus cut off her head. The Gorgons had the ability to petrify with their gaze, and Medusa’s blood, on contact with the foam created by the waves, petrified some seaweed, which with the blood turned red.
The museum was founded in 1986 by the Sicilian-Campania-born coral expert Giorgio Filocamo (died 2021) for the purpose of preserving the exceptional wealth of valuable antique objects handed down to him by his family. Regarding the birth of the museum here is a passage from “Memoirs of corallari, Giorgio Filocamo: My Life for Coral” by Marcello Napoli, Largo Campo, Historical Center Monthly Salerno July/August 1998: “Thirty-two years ago, I arrived in Ravello with my grandfather’s relics and everything I had: a huge wealth of experience. I set up a store under the cathedral. In an area behind the store, separated by a grating, like an ancient prison, I set free my imagination as a craftsman and my desire to see the world of coral represented in what became, over the years, a real museum. Editor’s note: He would never have said it, but many fine names in culture and entertainment, national and international, have passed through here“.
The museum houses an extraordinary collection of fine coral artifacts made along a time span from Roman times to the 20th century, as well as a rich collection of cameos, mother-of-pearl and shells engraved by local craftsmen. Among the most interesting pieces are: a Christ on a crystal cross from the 17th century, a Madonna Assumption from the 16th century, a cameo-encrusted snuff box in the Louis XV style (the other known, but not intact, specimen is in the Louvre in Paris), a Roman amphora from the 3rd century AD with an internal coral formation, and 14 cherub heads dating from the 18th and 19th centuries worked in burin point. The museum’s precious artifacts have also been exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, Assisi, at the Reggia di Caserta, the San Fruttuoso complex in Camogli, the Oceanographic Museum in Monte Carlo, and Torre del Greco.
Photo gallery © Camo Coral Museum
