Description
The Capodimonte Museum is Naples' great picture gallery, inside a Bourbon palace on the hill of Capodimonte, set in a park. It holds mostly paintings: the Farnese collection with Titian, Raphael and Correggio, the Neapolitan Gallery, a royal apartment and a section of contemporary art.
You begin on the first floor with the Farnese Gallery. For Titian, Capodimonte has the most important and numerous collection in the world: here are the portraits of Paul III and the Danaë. Then Raphael, El Greco, Correggio and Parmigianino, up to the Carracci rooms.
Two rooms are worth a stop. One is entirely for Masaccio's Crucifixion. The other houses the two masterpieces of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Parable of the Blind and the Misanthrope. In the Wunderkammer, the room of wonders, are the rare pieces of the Farnese, such as the Farnese Casket.
On the second floor the Neapolitan Gallery tells the story of the city's painting from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, with works saved from churches. In room 78 Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ has a room all to itself: the painting that opened the great season of Neapolitan seventeenth-century art. Around it are the Caravaggisti and Ribera.
The ground floor and the mezzanine have instead the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints and the visitor rooms. The porcelain gallery displays pieces from the Real Fabbrica, while the Farnese and Bourbon Armory gathers antique arms.
Elsewhere you can visit the Royal Apartment, with the rooms of the Bourbons, the French and the Dukes of Aosta, and contemporary art, where Andy Warhol's Vesuvius stands out.
It all began with a problem: too many masterpieces and nowhere to put them. Charles of Bourbon had inherited the family collection from his mother, Elisabeth Farnese, and kept it in the storerooms of the Royal Palace, threatened by the nearness of the sea.
In 1738 he had a palace built on the hill, conceived as a museum. The first paintings were hung in 1758, with the palace still unfinished, in twelve large rooms. Among the visitors of the time were Goethe, Canova and even the Marquis de Sade. The museum was officially inaugurated in 1957.
Don't miss
• Caravaggio's Flagellation.
• Titian's Danaë.
• Bruegel's Parable of the Blind.
• Masaccio's Crucifixion.
Did you know?
• The floor of the Salone della Culla comes from Villa Jovis, on Capri.
• In room 4 there are four charcoal drawings: two by Michelangelo, one by Raphael and one by Giovan Francesco Penni.
You begin on the first floor with the Farnese Gallery. For Titian, Capodimonte has the most important and numerous collection in the world: here are the portraits of Paul III and the Danaë. Then Raphael, El Greco, Correggio and Parmigianino, up to the Carracci rooms.
Two rooms are worth a stop. One is entirely for Masaccio's Crucifixion. The other houses the two masterpieces of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Parable of the Blind and the Misanthrope. In the Wunderkammer, the room of wonders, are the rare pieces of the Farnese, such as the Farnese Casket.
On the second floor the Neapolitan Gallery tells the story of the city's painting from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, with works saved from churches. In room 78 Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ has a room all to itself: the painting that opened the great season of Neapolitan seventeenth-century art. Around it are the Caravaggisti and Ribera.
The ground floor and the mezzanine have instead the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints and the visitor rooms. The porcelain gallery displays pieces from the Real Fabbrica, while the Farnese and Bourbon Armory gathers antique arms.
Elsewhere you can visit the Royal Apartment, with the rooms of the Bourbons, the French and the Dukes of Aosta, and contemporary art, where Andy Warhol's Vesuvius stands out.
It all began with a problem: too many masterpieces and nowhere to put them. Charles of Bourbon had inherited the family collection from his mother, Elisabeth Farnese, and kept it in the storerooms of the Royal Palace, threatened by the nearness of the sea.
In 1738 he had a palace built on the hill, conceived as a museum. The first paintings were hung in 1758, with the palace still unfinished, in twelve large rooms. Among the visitors of the time were Goethe, Canova and even the Marquis de Sade. The museum was officially inaugurated in 1957.
Don't miss
• Caravaggio's Flagellation.
• Titian's Danaë.
• Bruegel's Parable of the Blind.
• Masaccio's Crucifixion.
Did you know?
• The floor of the Salone della Culla comes from Villa Jovis, on Capri.
• In room 4 there are four charcoal drawings: two by Michelangelo, one by Raphael and one by Giovan Francesco Penni.