Description
The Royal Palace of Naples stands in Piazza del Plebiscito and is the grand residence of the Spanish viceroys, the Bourbons and the Savoys. Inside you can visit the nineteenth-century apartments, a chapel with a famous nativity scene, a little court theater and gardens hanging above the port.
The facade, almost 170 meters long, is the calling card: rosy brick and volcanic stone, three orders of windows and eight statues of rulers in the niches. They are the kings of Naples, from Roger II to Victor Emmanuel II, placed there in 1888 to say that the Savoys were continuing a long history.
Inside, the grand staircase is clad in marble from the quarries of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. From here starts the route through the Royal Apartment, a parade of rooms furnished as they were in the nineteenth century, with frescoed ceilings, tapestries and porcelain.
The court theater was fitted out in 1768 for the wedding of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine. On the ceiling of the Throne Room parade the figures of the kingdom's fourteen provinces.
The Palatine Chapel houses the Banco di Napoli's nativity scene: over three hundred pieces from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the first floor you step out into the hanging garden, with its view of the port, while the street-level promenade garden was designed in 1842 by a German botanist.
The palace was built for a king who never came. In 1600 the viceroy, the Count of Lemos, wanted it for Philip III of Spain, who was expected to visit Naples, but the sovereign never set foot in it. The palace remained all the same, and became the center of power in the city.
The project went to Domenico Fontana, who had worked in Rome for Pope Sixtus V and had then fallen from favor. He was so enthusiastic that he had an inscription carved on two columns of the facade.
Under the facade Fontana had planned a continuous portico, so that the people could stroll even in the rain. After Masaniello's revolt, and with the columns giving way, in 1753 Vanvitelli had the arches walled up. In 1919 Victor Emmanuel III handed the palace over to the State.
Don't miss
• The grand staircase.
• The court theater.
• The Palatine Chapel with the nativity scene.
• The hanging garden.
Did you know?
• In 1729 Montesquieu called the old seventeenth-century staircase the most beautiful in Europe. Today's is from 1858.
• The two bronze grooms at the entrance of the National Library were a gift from Tsar Nicholas I.
The facade, almost 170 meters long, is the calling card: rosy brick and volcanic stone, three orders of windows and eight statues of rulers in the niches. They are the kings of Naples, from Roger II to Victor Emmanuel II, placed there in 1888 to say that the Savoys were continuing a long history.
Inside, the grand staircase is clad in marble from the quarries of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. From here starts the route through the Royal Apartment, a parade of rooms furnished as they were in the nineteenth century, with frescoed ceilings, tapestries and porcelain.
The court theater was fitted out in 1768 for the wedding of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina of Habsburg-Lorraine. On the ceiling of the Throne Room parade the figures of the kingdom's fourteen provinces.
The Palatine Chapel houses the Banco di Napoli's nativity scene: over three hundred pieces from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the first floor you step out into the hanging garden, with its view of the port, while the street-level promenade garden was designed in 1842 by a German botanist.
The palace was built for a king who never came. In 1600 the viceroy, the Count of Lemos, wanted it for Philip III of Spain, who was expected to visit Naples, but the sovereign never set foot in it. The palace remained all the same, and became the center of power in the city.
The project went to Domenico Fontana, who had worked in Rome for Pope Sixtus V and had then fallen from favor. He was so enthusiastic that he had an inscription carved on two columns of the facade.
Under the facade Fontana had planned a continuous portico, so that the people could stroll even in the rain. After Masaniello's revolt, and with the columns giving way, in 1753 Vanvitelli had the arches walled up. In 1919 Victor Emmanuel III handed the palace over to the State.
Don't miss
• The grand staircase.
• The court theater.
• The Palatine Chapel with the nativity scene.
• The hanging garden.
Did you know?
• In 1729 Montesquieu called the old seventeenth-century staircase the most beautiful in Europe. Today's is from 1858.
• The two bronze grooms at the entrance of the National Library were a gift from Tsar Nicholas I.