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The Capodimonte Museum & Royal Wood
The Royal
Palace at Capodimonte was started in 1738 during the
reign of Charles III of
Bourbon. Eventually it would be one of four such
palaces used by the Bourbons during their rule of the
Kingdom of Naples. (The others are: the Palace at Caserta, another
on the slopes of Vesuvius in Portici near Herculaneum, and, of
course, the Royal Palace in
the heart of the city, itself.) The palace and grounds
at Capodimonte were spread over 300 acres of farmland,
converting the land from agricultural use into a vast
hunting reserve for the royal family. The original
wish of Charles III of Bourbon was for a “royal
pleasure haunt” at Capodimonte—a
hunting ground with a lodge. The grounds were thus
turned into a botanical marvel, with brushwood,
evergreen oak, chestnut, elm, fig trees, wild olives
and myrtle groves, all designed to foster the various
types of game introduced into the wood. The original
design for the whole area, both palace and hunting
grounds, was probably by Antonio Canevari (also the
architect for the palace at Portici); Ferdinando Fuga laid out the
entrance courtyard with four radiating avenues and the
central drive. Ferdinando
Sanfelice designed the Royal Porcelain Works on
the grounds as well as the nearby church of San
Gennaro, ordered built by Charles as the house of
worship for workers involved in the construction and
maintenance of palace and grounds. Part of the grounds was turned into a well-husbanded ‘English Garden’ in the 1820s. Much of the grounds, however, was kept in a wild and natural state until the middle of the nineteenth century when broad footpaths were laid, radiating out from the palace, itself, such as to give the grounds more the effect of a garden for strolling rather than hunting. Over the years, a number of secondary buildings were constructed, some of them self-perpetuating in the sense that they provided agricultural services to maintain the grounds, themselves. The palace itself was not completed until 1838. In
the interim, of course, the Napoleonic
wars had taken place, one result of which was
that the King of Naples, Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon’s
brother), had a magnificent new boulevard, Corso
Napoleone, built in order to facilitate passage from
the palace to the city. The Bonapartes left the scene,
and their sworn enemies, the Bourbons, returned to
find a brand-new avenue waiting for them. Today that
thoroughfare bears the name, Santa Teresa degli
Scalzi. Today, the palace houses a number of significant
displays, among which are the Historical Apartment,
the Armory, the Porcelain Room, and, of course, the
items in the collection of the National Art Gallery, a
collection based on one originally belonging to the Farnese family and bequeathed
to the Bourbons in 1731. The current art collection is
rich, indeed, and includes Michelangelo, Rembrandt,
Raphael, Caravaggio, and Botticelli. The former Royal
Wood is a public park, well frequented by Neapolitans.
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