  The application of the Correlated basis function theory and of the Fermi
hypernetted chain technique, to the description of the ground state of
medium-heavy nuclei is reviewed. We discuss how the formalism, originally
developed for symmetric nuclear matter, should be changed in order to describe
finite nuclear systems, with different number of protons and neutrons. This
approach allows us to describe doubly closed shell nuclei by using microscopic
nucleon-nucleon interactions. We presents results of numerical calculations
done with two-nucleon interactions of Argonne type,implemented with three-body
forces of Urbana type. Our results regard ground-state energies, matter, charge
and momentum distributions, natural orbits, occupation numbers, quasi-hole wave
functions and spectroscopic factors of 12C, 16O, 40Ca, 48Ca and 208Pb nuclei.
