Description
The Maschio Angioino, or Castel Nuovo, is the fortress with five round towers that dominates Piazza Municipio, facing the port. It is one of the symbols of Naples: a medieval and Renaissance castle-palace that today houses a civic museum and its most famous rooms.
The entrance is a work of art. Between two towers stands the marble triumphal arch, a masterpiece of the Neapolitan Renaissance, celebrating King Alfonso of Aragon's entry into the city. Francesco Laurana and other sculptors worked on it; at the top is Saint Michael.
In the courtyard the Palatine Chapel is the only surviving piece of the fourteenth-century Angevin castle, with a Renaissance portal and a few traces of frescoes. Nearby the Armory Hall has a glass floor, under which you can see Roman finds.
The Sala dei Baroni is the heart of the castle: a great hall with an umbrella vault by Guillem Sagrera and two cross-shaped windows overlooking the sea. Below, the prisons hold the crocodile pit, about which a grim legend is told. The civic museum displays paintings from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, including Mattia Preti and Luca Giordano.
The castle was the wish of Charles I of Anjou, who had moved the capital from Palermo to Naples and was looking for a palace by the sea. It was built in just three years, from 1279, but the king never lived in it.
In 1294, in the main hall, Celestine V renounced the papacy. With Robert of Anjou came Giotto to fresco the walls, but the cycle is lost. Today's castle is above all Aragonese: Alfonso rebuilt it from the mid-fifteenth century, with round towers made to withstand cannon.
His son Ferrante, in 1487, invited the conspiring barons to the hall on the pretext of a wedding feast: it was a trap, and the barons were arrested. Since then it has been the Sala dei Baroni. The crocodile legend, instead, tells of prisoners dragged out to sea by a reptile.
The civic museum on the first floor displays religious paintings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, with Battistello Caracciolo, Luca Giordano, Solimena and Mattia Preti. On the second floor are works from the eighteenth to the twentieth century: history, landscapes, portraits and views of Naples.
Then came centuries as a barracks, and the castle vanished among hovels and sheds. It was isolated again in the 1920s.
Don't miss
• The triumphal arch.
• The Sala dei Baroni.
• The Palatine Chapel.
• The Armory Hall.
Did you know?
• In 1494 a French cannonball struck the castle's bronze door.
• During the Spanish viceroyalty four frescoes by Giotto in the Palatine Chapel were erased.
The entrance is a work of art. Between two towers stands the marble triumphal arch, a masterpiece of the Neapolitan Renaissance, celebrating King Alfonso of Aragon's entry into the city. Francesco Laurana and other sculptors worked on it; at the top is Saint Michael.
In the courtyard the Palatine Chapel is the only surviving piece of the fourteenth-century Angevin castle, with a Renaissance portal and a few traces of frescoes. Nearby the Armory Hall has a glass floor, under which you can see Roman finds.
The Sala dei Baroni is the heart of the castle: a great hall with an umbrella vault by Guillem Sagrera and two cross-shaped windows overlooking the sea. Below, the prisons hold the crocodile pit, about which a grim legend is told. The civic museum displays paintings from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, including Mattia Preti and Luca Giordano.
The castle was the wish of Charles I of Anjou, who had moved the capital from Palermo to Naples and was looking for a palace by the sea. It was built in just three years, from 1279, but the king never lived in it.
In 1294, in the main hall, Celestine V renounced the papacy. With Robert of Anjou came Giotto to fresco the walls, but the cycle is lost. Today's castle is above all Aragonese: Alfonso rebuilt it from the mid-fifteenth century, with round towers made to withstand cannon.
His son Ferrante, in 1487, invited the conspiring barons to the hall on the pretext of a wedding feast: it was a trap, and the barons were arrested. Since then it has been the Sala dei Baroni. The crocodile legend, instead, tells of prisoners dragged out to sea by a reptile.
The civic museum on the first floor displays religious paintings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, with Battistello Caracciolo, Luca Giordano, Solimena and Mattia Preti. On the second floor are works from the eighteenth to the twentieth century: history, landscapes, portraits and views of Naples.
Then came centuries as a barracks, and the castle vanished among hovels and sheds. It was isolated again in the 1920s.
Don't miss
• The triumphal arch.
• The Sala dei Baroni.
• The Palatine Chapel.
• The Armory Hall.
Did you know?
• In 1494 a French cannonball struck the castle's bronze door.
• During the Spanish viceroyalty four frescoes by Giotto in the Palatine Chapel were erased.