Minerva Academy Cast Guide: Who Plays Salvo, Vincenzo, Camilla and More?

Netflix’s Italian teen drama Minerva Academy, originally titled Minerva – La Scuola, brings a group of teenagers into a military high school in Naples where discipline controls almost every part of daily life. Phones and civilian clothes are forbidden, relationships between cadets are restricted, and lessons range from traditional academics to fencing and military tactics. At the center of the eight-episode series are Salvo, Vincenzo and Camilla, three first-year students who arrive at Minerva for very different reasons and quickly become involved in the school’s rivalries, friendships and secrets.

The young cast is led by Ciro Minopoli, Biagio Venditti and Margherita Buoncristiani, with Giulio Brizzi, Nicole Malaj, Simone Secce and Alicia Edogamhe among the other cadets. The adult side of the story includes established Italian performers Massimiliano Gallo and Cristiana Capotondi, along with Irene Maiorino, Raiz and Michele Rosiello. Netflix released all eight episodes of Minerva Academy on September 22, 2026.

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Ciro Minopoli as Salvo Fusco

Ciro Minopoli plays Salvo Fusco, the character who brings the mystery element into Minerva Academy. Salvo comes from a group home and does not enroll because he has dreamed of a military career since childhood. He enters Minerva because he wants to discover what really happened to his best friend, whose disappearance is connected to the academy and becomes one of the central questions running through Season 1.

Minopoli is one of the newer actors leading the Netflix series, although Minerva Academy is not his first screen role. His earlier credits include Criature, the short film H2nontiO, Nereide, and Saint Pio of Pietrelcina – Man of Hope and Healing, in which he portrayed a young Padre Pio. Salvo is nevertheless his most prominent television role to date and places him at the center of the show’s mystery as well as its first-year cadet storyline.

Biagio Venditti as Vincenzo Cipriani

Biagio Venditti plays Vincenzo Cipriani, another first-year cadet whose reasons for joining Minerva are almost the opposite of Salvo’s. Vincenzo comes from a military family and arrives determined to follow the career path established by his father. That family expectation gives his time at the academy a more personal dimension because Vincenzo must decide whether the future he has always been taught to want is actually the future he would choose for himself.

Venditti will already be familiar to younger Netflix viewers from DI4RIES, where he played Daniele across 28 episodes. His other credits include Storia di una notte and L’ultima settimana di settembre. Compared with some of the newer faces in the Minerva cast, Venditti therefore arrives with substantial experience carrying a teen drama storyline.

Margherita Buoncristiani as Camilla Savino

Margherita Buoncristiani stars as Camilla Savino, a wealthy and rebellious teenager from Milan who has not chosen military school for herself. Her father sends her to Minerva hoping that its strict rules will change her behavior, placing Camilla in immediate conflict with the institution’s rigid expectations. Netflix describes her as spoiled when she arrives, but her story is designed around what happens when someone accustomed to privilege is suddenly placed in a world where everyone is expected to follow the same rules.

Buoncristiani is 24 and was born in Verona, according to a profile published by Vogue Italia on the day of the Netflix release. She previously appeared in the film Un altro giorno insieme, but Minerva Academy marks her first major television showcase. Buoncristiani has also said that she recognizes some of Camilla’s rebelliousness in herself, although the academy setting pushes the character into circumstances far removed from her own life.

Giulio Brizzi as Max

Giulio Brizzi plays Max, one of Minerva’s third-year students and part of the more experienced group of cadets already familiar with the school’s traditions. Unlike Salvo, Vincenzo and Camilla, Max is not discovering the institution for the first time, which allows the series to show the academy from the perspective of students who already understand its hierarchy. He appears alongside Rachele as one of the older students whose position naturally affects the first-year cadets entering Minerva.

Brizzi has a considerably longer screen resume than several members of the younger ensemble. He played Adam in Time Is Up, appeared as Udo Kurt in Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia, and starred as Isaac in the 2025 film Impatience of the Heart. His casting gives the older-cadet side of Minerva a performer who already has experience across Italian and international film productions.

Nicole Malaj as Rachele

Nicole Malaj plays Rachele, another third-year student at Minerva. Netflix production imagery identifies Rachele and Max as part of the older group of cadets, separating them from Salvo, Vincenzo and Camilla, who are beginning their first year. That difference in seniority becomes important in a school where rank, tradition and obedience have a much stronger presence than they would in an ordinary high school.

Malaj is among the young performers Netflix has placed prominently in the ensemble alongside Minopoli, Venditti, Buoncristiani and Brizzi. Public information about her earlier acting work remains relatively limited compared with the show’s established adult stars, making Minerva Academy an important introduction for international Netflix audiences. She was also one of the cast members who appeared at the show’s Giffoni Film Festival presentation before its global streaming debut.

Simone Secce as Diego Giordano

Simone Secce plays Diego Giordano, another cadet within the academy’s young ensemble. Promotional images released around the production identify Diego alongside Salvo, Vincenzo, Camilla, Max, Rachele, Adele, Monica and Francesco, showing how much of the drama depends on the larger student group rather than only the three central newcomers. The Giordano surname is also significant within the academy because commander Achille Giordano has a son attending the school.

Secce had acting experience before joining the Netflix series, including work on the Italian youth drama Marta & Eva. Like several members of the Minerva ensemble, however, this represents one of his most internationally visible projects. Netflix includes him among the principal young cast members in its official promotion for the series.

Alicia Edogamhe as Adele

Alicia Edogamhe plays Adele, one of the cadets who make up Minerva’s wider student body. Although Netflix’s official synopsis primarily concentrates on Salvo, Vincenzo and Camilla, production imagery confirms Adele as part of the group surrounding the central trio. Her presence helps make the academy feel like an ensemble environment where friendships, rivalries and relationships extend well beyond the three principal characters.

Edogamhe has previously been credited in the historical drama Those About to Die and is also attached to the film Piercing. She is one of several emerging actors used by director Ivan Silvestrini to build the younger generation of the cast. Silvestrini described the student performers during the Giffoni presentation as a new generation of faces entering Italian cinema and television.

Massimiliano Gallo as Commander Achille Giordano

Massimiliano Gallo plays Achille Giordano, the commanding officer who runs the Minerva military high school. Achille represents the institutional authority the young cadets encounter from the moment they enter the academy, and he is portrayed as uncompromising about maintaining its traditions and standards. The character also has a personal connection to the student body because one of his sons attends Minerva, preventing his responsibilities as commander and father from remaining completely separate.

Gallo is one of the most established actors in the cast and should be recognizable to Netflix viewers from Vanished Into the Night. He also appeared in Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, along with numerous Italian film and television productions accumulated over a long career. His experience provides a deliberate contrast to the many young actors receiving their first major opportunities in Minerva Academy.

Cristiana Capotondi as Laura Canali

Cristiana Capotondi plays Laura Canali, a history and philosophy teacher at Minerva who occupies an unusual position inside the military school’s structure. Laura is a civilian rather than a military officer, making her perspective different from the people responsible for enforcing the academy’s traditions. Capotondi has described Laura as someone capable of bringing critical thinking into an environment built around discipline, obedience and rules.

Capotondi is one of the best-known performers in the ensemble and has worked extensively across Italian film and television. Her character is also a young mother, giving the series another adult perspective beyond the officers responsible for training the cadets. Alongside Gallo’s Achille, Laura helps ensure that Minerva Academy is not exclusively about teenage relationships but also about the adults shaping the students’ lives.

Who Else Is in the Minerva Academy Cast?

The wider cast includes Beatrice Savignani, Irene Maiorino, Raiz and Michele Rosiello, all of whom Netflix lists among the principal ensemble. Antonio Adaggio, Carmen Annibale, Martina Attanasio, Fabio Bizzarro, Viola Brambilla, Luigi Bruno, Martina Pia Gambardella, Pietro Sparvoli and Luigi Zeno also appear during the eight-episode first season. Production imagery identifies Martina Pia Gambardella as Monica and Luigi Bruno as Francesco, while Luigi Zeno is credited elsewhere as Leonardo.

The mixture of emerging performers and established Italian actors fits the structure of the series, which divides its attention between cadets discovering what Minerva demands of them and adults dealing with their own responsibilities inside the institution. Director Ivan Silvestrini previously worked in Italian youth television, while the series is produced by Picomedia, the company also associated with The Sea Beyond. With Netflix releasing Minerva Academy internationally, many of its younger cast members are now receiving their widest exposure yet.