Capodimonte park, Capodimonte National Museum
The Capodimonte park, formerly the Royal park of Capodimonte, is a city park in Naples, located in the Capodimonte area, in front of the homonymous palace. With its surface area of 330 acres, the Royal Park of Capodimonte is the largest public park in Naples. In 2014 it was voted to be the “most beautiful park in Italy” for its historical, architectural and botanic heritage.
In 2016, 1,007 564 visitors were registered, making it the eighth most visited Italian state museum site.
History
Used already since 1735 for the hunting activity of Charles III of Spain, his great passion, the construction of the Capodimonte park begins in 1742, to end in the following year, under the guidance by the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice: this creates, in an area of one hundred and twenty-four hectares, which also includes the building of Capodimonte, a park of great visual and perspective impact, classic of the Enlightenment vision, but at the same time scenographic, referring to the influence from the late Baroque period, with panoramic areas thanks to the views of Posillipo, the hill ofSan Martino and Vesuvius; moreover, all the structures present in the park, used as houses, churches, factories or farms, are restored.
Following the return to the throne of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies after the brief period of the French decade, the park is open twice a year to all citizens, in conjunction with religious holidays, to allow the achievement of the ‘ hermitage of the Cappuccini, located on the forest boundaries. Between 1836 and 1837 redevelopment works were carried out under the guidance of the botanistFriedrich Dehnhardt: these introduce the classic English garden, in particular in the flower beds surrounding the palace, and plant arboreal essences, some of which are rare and exotic, such as Thuja and eucalyptus; it also provides for the arrangement of the lookouts, freeing the view of Vesuvius and the Gulf of Naples.
After the unification of Italy, the Savoys also used the park mainly for hunting trips: the main innovations in this period, between 1878 and 1900, are the introduction of palm trees, classic of the oriental taste of the period, and the arrangement of the belvedere with a view of Naples, with the creation of a fountain reusing the statues previously placed along the avenues of the park, especially from the area of the Torre garden. Heavily damaged during the Second World War, between 1966 and 1967 it was restored, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Capodimonte national museum, and opened as a public park, followed by new interventions between 1990 and 2000.
Description
The Capodimonte park covers an area of one hundred twenty hectares, protected in part by walls built in the 20s of the nineteenth century: in the same period are also two entrance doors, the Great Gate, along the route Bridges Rossi, with two side guard posts, and Porta Piccola, with sentry boxes built in 1835 and heavily remodeled over time; a third door, Porta Caccetta, was created in 1816, enlarged in 1834, demolished during the mid- twentieth century and restored in the early 2000s. Before entering the central heart of the park, you pass in front of the palace gardens, so called because they are placed around the structure that houses the Capodimonte museum, and also known by the name of Spianato: these are large flower beds on the prairie, built late eighteenth century, enriched from the late nineteenth century with Canarian palms, Washingtonia, groups of Phoenix reclinata, Chamaerops humilis, Cycas revoluta and Livistona chinensis; the borders of the flower beds made from flowering plants, in particular roses, have been lost.
Access to the park itself, the one where the forest develops, is allowed by three doors: the main one is the Porta di Mezzo, with a wrought iron gate, believed to be one of the most elegant examples of works of the Neapolitan rococo, completed in 1736 and originally adorned with Bourbon coats of arms and effigies, as well as being flanked by guardian’s houses and dwellings, built by Antonio Canevari and completed by Ferdinando Fuga, the Porta di Miano, built between 1837 and 1840, and the Porta di Santa Maria dei Monti, built either at the end of the 18th century or by the French, later fallen into disuse and so called by means of an ancient monastery located nearby.
The main entrance into the Royal Park is the Porta Grande (Big Gate), built around the second decade of the 19th century. In this painting within the Capodimonte Collection, you can see the Park and Porta Grande as it looked in ca. 1867 when Capodimonte belonged to the Crown of Savoy.
After passing through the Porta Grande, the Royal Palace and Museum comes into view, surrounded by lush tropical trees and a beautiful lawn. Benches line the walkways. The museum’s facade is striking from every angle of approach within the Royal Park surrounding it. Sit on a bench near the lawn or simply enjoy the majesty of the Museum’s facade. Either way, you can’t miss the Belvedere.
Close to the Porta Grande and the Museum is the Belvedere (Beautiful View). From here you can enjoy this amazing view of the city and the coast. You can recognize Vesuvius to the left, the Peninsula of Sorrento towards the middle, and the Island of Capri to the right. To the far right is the hill of Vomero with the Certosa di San Martino at its peak.
Today as in the Bourbon period, you must pass through the Porta di Mezzo (Middle Gate) to enter into the forest. This gate originally constituted the primary access point into the hunting grounds. Today the beautiful baroque iron gate, built in 1737, still remains.
Inside the Park you can follow the five long avenues designed in 1742 by the architect and scenographer Sanfelice, or you can discover the many lateral pathways and loose yourself in nature.
In the park there are over four hundred varieties of secular trees such as oaks, holm oaks, elms, lime and chestnut trees: alongside these, in the past, there were cultivations of fruit trees, especially citrus fruits; moreover, when the area was used as a royal hunting reserve, there were turtle doves, beccafichi, thrushes, pheasantsimported from Bohemia, hares, rabbits and deer. After passing the Porta di Mezzo, you enter an elliptical-shaped esplanade from which five avenues, originally decorated with benches, fake ruins, like the so-called Grottino in opus listatum, and statues, some arranged by Ferdinando Fuga, start largely lost: among the few survivors are the statue of the Giant, made with fragments of ancient marble and the Months. Of the five avenues, the central one, also known as Mezzo, has a length of one hundred and twenty-five meters and is bordered by holm oaks, which, by pruning the branches, form a sort of tunnel; in addition, numerous paths branch off from each avenue and go into the woods.
Since 1840, following the Bourbon’s wishes, many exotic botanic species from distant countries have been planted in the Anglo-Cino Garden. In the center of the Park is the Fontana di Mezzo (Middle Fountain). It is an old eighteenth-century fishpond. During the Bourbon period it was stocked with a variety of fishes. Around the Fountain are exotic cephalotaxis trees providing shade for the benches. The trees were planted here in the 19th century. At the end of the longest avenue you will find the Statue of the Giant – the most valuable piece of the statuary in the park. It is composed of ancient fragments of sculpture. The bust and the head with a vase come from Palazzo Farnese in Rome.
Inside the park there were several buildings used over time for various reasons: the Casino dei Principi was the residence of the children of Francesco I delle Due Sicilie in 1826, the Royal Porcelain Factory, restored by Ferdinando Sanfelice in 1743 and later became the seat of a professional institute for the processing of ceramics, the church of San Gennaro, commissioned by Carlo di Borbone for all the inhabitants of the park and built in 1745, the hermitage of the Capuchins, built between 1817 and 1819 with neo-Gothic forms, as a vote by Ferdinand for the reconquest of the kingdom after the French invasion and which became the seat of the Opera for the health of the child in 1950, the Casino della Regina, originally a resting place during hunting and donated later, around to 1840, from Ferdinando II delle Due Sicilie to his mother Maria Isabella of Bourbon-Spain and the Cataneo building, used for various tasks until it became the place where the workers receive the tasks for the care of the forest.
Until the 19th century, most of these buildings were surrounded by vegetable gardens and orchards, in order to create a sort of garden of delights; among the few survivors the so-called Torre garden: restored in 1999, it is located in the last part of the middle avenue and the parts dedicated to crops are distinguished inside, especially citrus fruits, or in any case fruit trees, so much so that one area took the name of fruit shop. Other gardens are the Purpignera, probably used for the reproduction of aromatic essences, and the secret garden, with a circular central tank, in which rare fruit, mulberry and pineapple plants were grown. In 2012 a project of garden recovery, extending over two thousand square meters and a small nursery with typical crops of the area near Naples as was started San Marzano tomatoes, the cannellini bean of Acerra, the Neapolitan papaccella. Among the structures dedicated to the keeping of animals: the stables, the pheasant, originally a powder keg, the goat, the cowhide and several dovecotes for the reproduction of birds, the latter created in the areas of the valleys.
There are four valleys close to the park: the Amendola, Cervi, Miano and San Gennaro valleys; the last of these is crossed by a bridge, called Ponte dell’Eremo, about twenty meters high.
The Royal Park
When King Charles of Bourbon came to Naples in 1734, he decided to commission a new residence on the hill of Capodimonte for his two great passions: hunting and his art collection. The Palace was constructed within a natural forest by the architect Giovanni Antonio Medrano to exhibit the Farnese Collection. The King brought the collection to Naples from his previous residences in Rome and Parma.
The Project of Ferdinando Sanfelice
The arrangment of the Park, with its surface area of over 330 acres, was entrusted to the architect and scenographer Ferdinando Sanfelice in 1742. He exploited the land, managing to create a fusion between audacious perspectives and stunning scenographic vistas. The main entrance to the Park, known as Porta di Mezzo, was articulated by a large elliptical area from which five long avenues fan out. These avenues are intersected by lateral pathways.
Church of San Gennaro
There are a number of historic buildings in the Royal Park. Many of them were originally intended to function as court residences, while others were used as places of workship, for factories, or for the rearing of animals and other agricultural purposes. Among them, the Church of San Gennaro was erected by Ferdinando Sanfelice at the behest of Charles of Bourbon in 1745. An old inscription on a marble slab above the entrance attests to the building’s commission.
The Church was erected to serve the Royal Park’s rather large population. Artworks were commissioned to adorn the interior of the church beginning in the 18th century, including a large canvas of San Gennaro, as well as four statues dedicated to the patron saints of the King’s family: St. Charles, St. Amalia, St. Philip and St. Elizabeth.
Princes’ Lodge
The Lodge, before it was acquired by the Bourbon Family, was originally owned by the noble family of Carmignano. It was one of the most beautiful holiday villas on the Capodimonte hill. In 1826, during the reign of Francis I of Bourbon, it became the residence for his children – the Royal Princes.
Royal Porcelain Factory
, Architect Ferdinando Sanfelice transformed an already existing building into the Royal Porcelain Factory in 1743. The porcelain produced here was inspired by the Meissen Factory and became famous across the world. Now the Palace hosts the “Istituto ad indirizzo raro G. Caselli”, a fine arts high school specializing in porcelain and ceramic crafts.
Tower Garden
The Tower Garden is a complex area composed of a tower as well as gardens divided into several diverse zones of cultivation. The Garden was largely dedicated to the “Royal Fruitery”, with espaliers of fruit trees along the walkways, as well as pineapples and a wide variety of citrus fruits.
Inside the Tower Garden resides a wood burning oven where in 1889, pizza with tomato and mozzarella was created taking the name “Pizza Margherita”, dedicated to Queen Margareth of Savoy.
Capraia
The Capraia (goat barn) is an18th century agricultural building. On the ground floor there were rooms for agricultural use, stables, and sheds. The upper floors provided rooms for shepherds and farmers. Today, the Capraia hosts the “Center for the History of Art and Architecture of Port Cities” – a partnership between the Capodimonte Museum and the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas.
Cellar
Since the 18th century, this cellar has preserved wine barrels, wood, acorns and grain, preserved meats, millet, beans, and fava beans, as well as wild game from the Royal Park and products for sale. Today the Cellar is a space for staging exhibitions, events, and conferences.
Hermitage of the Capuchin Friars
The hermitage was built in 1817. It was commissioned by King Ferdinand of Bourbon upon his return to the throne of Naples in 1815, following Napoleon’s defeat. He ordered the contruction in accordance with a tradition that required the King to make a vow to reconquer the Kingdom.
Capodimonte National Museum
The National Museum of Capodimonte is a museum in Naples, Italy, located inside the eponymous palace in the Capodimonte area, which houses several ancient art galleries, one of contemporary art and an apartment historical.
It was officially opened as a museum in 1957, although the palace rooms have housed works of art since 1758. It predominantly preserves paintings, distributed mainly in the two main collections, the Farnese, which include some of the greatest names in Italian and international painting. such as Rafael, Tiziano, Parmigianino, Brueghel the Elder, El Greco, Ludovico Carracci or Guido Reni; and the Neapolitan Gallery, which is made up of works from churches in and around the city, transported to Capodimonte for security reasons after the suppression of religious orders, and features works by artists such as Simone Martini, Colantonio, Caravaggio, Ribera, Luca Giordano or Francesco Solimena. The contemporary art collection is also important, in which Vesuvius by Andy Warhol stands out.
The Capodimonte Museum boasts 47,000 works of art that form one of the largest and most complex collections of medieval, early modern, modern and contemporary art in the world. In 126 galleries spread across 151,000 square feet, works of the great artists are exhibited such as: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Simone Martini, Giovanni Bellini, Colantonio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Jusepe de Ribera, Battistello, Luca Giordano, Mattia Preti, Francesco Solimena, the Carracci, Guido Reni, Lanfranco, Bruegel the Elder, and Van Dyck to name a few.
It all began with the Farnese Collection that Charles I of Bourbon, son of the King of Spain, inherited from his mother Elisabetta and took with him to Naples in 1735, with the desire to display it in this hilltop Palace. Construction of the Palace began in 1738, to function as a picture gallery and hunting lodge. Capodimonte is the only Italian museum that in addition to representing almost all the schools of early modern Italian art, can also boast works by contemporary artists such as Burri, Paolini, Bourgeois, Warhol, and Kiefer.
The Royal Park of Capodimonte, with its 300 acres and more than 400 plant species, is an unspoiled green space that overlooks the city and Gulf of Naples. Exotic species were planted here, including the first mandarin trees in Italy. It is the largest urban park in Italy, with roughly 1,500,000 visitors a year. Within the Royal Park you can admire the last baroque garden of sino-english design replete with rare oriental fragrances.
Majestically nestled within its Royal Park overlooking the Bay of Naples – Capodimonte offers a truly singular combination of artistic and natural beauty that is utterly unique throughout the world.