Farnese and Bourbon Armory, Capodimonte National Museum
In rooms 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50 the collections of the Farnesian and Bourbon Armory are exhibited: these are about four thousand pieces whose first set-up dates back to 1958 and of which they still retain their original appearance. Pieces of history and high craftsmanship, where many pieces with friezes and decorations were used by nobles and rulers to make themselves “beautiful” and show their own rank and power.
The historic Armory is “one of the most remarkable collection of historical weapons in Europe that belonged to the Farnese family between the end of the 15th and 17th centuries. Received as an inheritance by Charles of Bourbon, he added in the eighteenth century his collection of firearms, some diplomatic gifts and other weapons produced by the Royal Factory of Naples. In the nineteenth century Ferdinando IV enriched the collection with some fine sixteenth-century artifacts, recovered during his exile in Palermo “, as Capodimonte communicates.
The armory of the Capodimonte Museum, an extraordinary example of collecting with firearms, cutting and defense weapons, white weapons, swords and daggers, beating weapons, auction weapons, armor and war cranks and tournament, all belonging to the Farnese family. To these pieces are added those of the Bourbon family, including rifles and pistols from the British and French factories, donated to the sovereigns, generic artillery and the equipment of the Bourbon army.
The Farnesian collection includes mostly Milanese and Bresciaese weapons, but also Spanish and German examples of firearms, cutting and defense, tournament and war armor, pistols, swords, daggers and arquebuses, among which the Armor by Alessandro Farnese known as del Giglio, by Pompeo della Cesa, and an Italian wheel rifle that belonged to Ranuccio Farnese. The Bourbon series includes firearms, some from Madrid with Charles of Bourbon, others of Neapolitan manufacture coming from the Royal Arms Factory of Torre Annunziata to fulfill the needs of the Bourbon army, and hunting weapons made for pure recreational purposes such as a flintlock rifle belonging to Maria Amalia.
To these are added weapons donated to Carlo and Ferdinando as carbines and rifles of Saxon, Viennese and Spanish manufacture, white weapons produced both by the Royal Factory and by the Steel Factory, the latter located in the Capodimonte parkfrom 1782: Carlo la Bruna, Biagio Ignesti, Michele Battista, Natale del Moro and Emanuel Estevan were the creators of the works. There are also oriental-made weapons and war models used for the artillery school, Italian carousel armor and seventeenth-century wars, swords of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, one of which probably belonged to Ettore Fieramosca, Italian firearms and European 18th and 19th centuries. Particular a plaster model depicting Carlo V by Vincenzo Gemito.
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.