Nisida
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Nisida is a volcanic islet of the Flegrean Islands archipelago, in southern Italy. It lies at a very short distance from Cape Posillipo, just north of Naples; it is now connected to the mainland by a stone bridge. The isle is circular and has a diameter of c. 0.5 km and a highest altitude of 105 m.
In ancient times Lucius Licinius Lucullus built a villa on Nisida, and also Marcus Iunius Brutus had a partician residence here. Here, the latter's wife Porcia, the daughter of Cato Uticensis, committed suicide. The claim is made that some of archaeologocal remains on Nisida are, indeed, those of the villa of Brutus, and that here is where the conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar was hatched. In the 16th century a castle was built, which was subsequently a fief of the Macedonio family.
In the 19th century, Nisida was the site of an infamous Bourbon prison that gained notoriety when--after a visit to the prison in 1851--William Gladstone wrote his Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen on the State Prosecutions of the Neapolitan Government, exposing the harsh conditions. In these letters, Gladstone coined the now famous description of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies as "the negation of God erected into a system of Government." Indignation throughout Europe was partially responsible for the at least partial bettering of such conditions in the prison,
Nisida is divided now between a naval headquarters belonging to NATO and a juvenile detention facility.
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