Naval Base Naples
The naval base Naples-Molosiglio is now a relatively small facility of the Italian Navy in the western part of the port of Naples . The base is located south of Castelnuovo and the Stazione Marittima and includes the pier San Vincenzo . Large parts of the remaining base and the pier are to be made accessible to the public. Based on the model of the Galata Sea Museum in Genoa, the plan is to set up a maritime museum on the base .
history
In the Gulf of Naples there was already an important naval base in antiquity : the strongest naval unit of the Roman navy was stationed in Misenum . In Naples itself, the port facilities of Portus Vulpulum and Portus de Arcina were located at the site of today's Stazione marittima , the latter being used for military purposes. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, the Duchy of Amalfi ruled the southern Tyrrhenian Sea with its fleet . In the fight against the Saracens , the Duchy of Naples supported Amalfi occasionally with a few ships, probably from Portus Vulpulum .
A first naval base, including a small naval arsenal , was set up in the port of Naples around 1300 in front of the towers of Castel Nuovo at today's Molo Beverello . In the 16th century, the Spaniards , whose crown had long belonged to the Kingdom of Naples , expanded and fortified the naval base. The reason for this was the threat from the Ottomans and the barbarians . Between 1577 and 1583 a new naval base was built a few hundred meters south of Castel Nuovo , which later became known as Porto militare del Molosiglio . In 1598, under the direction of Domenico Fontana, construction began on the first section of the San Vincenzo pier , which was to become an integral part of the naval base.
Since the naval base with its arsenal in the heart of Naples still proved to be too small, the neighboring Castellammare di Stabia was used to build larger warships . In 1667 and 1668 and between 1739 and 1743 the arsenal and the base in Naples were expanded again. At the time, the port was limited to the area in front of Castel Nuovo : the still small pier of San Vincenzo served the military, the Molo Angioino (today the Stazione marittima ) served the civilian seafaring. The whole eastern trading port was built much later.
For the new navy of the independent kingdom of Naples, Charles III. 1735 a naval academy in Naples . The naval minister John Acton had a new naval shipyard built in Castellammare di Stabia from 1783 because the arsenal in Naples was no longer sufficient for the construction of the new 74-gun ships of the Partenope class . Under Ferdinand II , a further expansion of the Molosiglio naval base began in 1836. In particular, the San Vincenzo pier was expanded , into which one of the first brick dry docks in Italy was integrated by 1852 . Until 1896 this pier was extended as an essential part of the naval base and later a helipad was added.
From 1925, large parts of the base and the arsenal were abandoned because the government wanted to carry out major urban development measures at the port. This included a new traffic axis (Via Ferdinando Acton, Galleria della Vittoria) and a city park (Giardini del Molosiglio) . What was left of the base (basically just the pier) was mainly used by smaller units such as torpedo boats and submarines during World War II . For larger ships, an area was reserved further east in the Zona Industriale (Pontile Flavio Gioia, Molo Giovanni Bausan) .
During the Cold War , the 6th US Fleet in particular used the port of Naples as a base, with larger ships such as aircraft carriers usually anchored in the roadstead . Although the Molosiglio naval base had been significantly reduced in size in the 1920s, the importance of Naples as a naval base increased when the headquarters of the 6th Fleet moved from Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice to Gaeta (and Naples) in 1966 . On Nisida , an island in the Gulf of Naples, was until 2013 the command Allied Naval Forces Southern Europe (NAVSOUTH / MC Naples), in the district of Bagnoli ( ⊙ ) the parent command Allied Forces Southern Europe ( AFSOUTH / JFC Naples , today at Lago Patria ⊙ ) . The command of the United States Naval Forces Europe is today in the military part of the Naples-Capodichino airport , the flagship of the subordinate 6th Fleet is still stationed in Gaeta.
The coastal section command for the southern Tyrrhenian Sea remained in the Admiralty building of the former arsenal of Molosiglio until 1998 , when it was downgraded to a base command. In 2014, the Navy Lighthouse Service , which is subordinate to the new Naval Logistics Command on Nisida, moved into the building .
The naval base Molosiglio is currently only used sporadically by naval forces. Most of the time it involves visits from Italian or foreign naval units, otherwise it has been left to security authorities. The planned restructuring of the remaining plant for civilian purposes, in particular the establishment of a museum would complement the historic center of Naples and the old part of the port to an attraction: located next to the In the vicinity Castelnuovo and the Molosiglio Park with its small marina also the Palazzo Reale , and the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola at the Piazza del Plebiscito , and the famous Teatro San Carlo and the well known Galleria Umberto I .
Web links
- Corriere del Mezzogiorno for the planned civilian use of the base
- For planning and building the dry dock in Molo San Vincenzo
- Navy logistics command
- Naples Lighthouse and Navigation Sign Command
Coordinates: 40 ° 50 ′ 6.5 ″ N , 14 ° 15 ′ 23.5 ″ E