Viewpoints on Nisida. Iconographic comparisons of views of the island

Due to the visual control of the Gulf of Pozzuoli and the presence of rugged and sheer slopes above the sea, the island of Nisida has always presented itself as a site naturally suited to defense but also to an area of confinement and/or segregation while for the panoramic and salubriousness of the places, to idleness. Inserted in a panorama of research oriented to a knowledge of what remains today of the defense architectures of Nisida, this contribution focuses attention on the investigation and reading of the iconographic sources of the island. Through the discipline of drawing (as a means of knowledge as well as of narrative representation) the rich visual heritage of view type will be analysed here, which, with multiple points of view and graphic techniques of representation, describe the small island on whose summit the Penal Institute is today implanted, once a coastal defense tower, a medieval monastery, and a Roman villa, as reported in literature and sources.