Museo di Capodimonte

Capodimonte was built as a royal statement and became one of Italy's greatest picture galleries. Begun in 1738 for Charles of Bourbon to house the Farnese inheritance, the palace now displays masterpieces from Titian and Caravaggio to Andy Warhol, and opens onto the Real Bosco, a 134-hectare historical park stretched along the hill above the city.

Why it matters

The Farnese collection that Charles inherited from his mother Elisabetta forms the core of the museum: paintings, bronzes, gems and decorative arts that Napoleon's troops would carry off in part, but whose survivors still anchor the galleries. Around that core the museum assembles Neapolitan art from the thirteenth century onward, a royal apartment furnished for three dynasties, a porcelain boudoir unique to this court, and contemporary works that keep the collection alive.

What to notice

In the Farnese rooms, look for Titian's portraits and the mythologies that made the collection famous across Europe, alongside Raphael, Michelangelo, Botticelli and Masaccio, with Caravaggio's "Flagellation of Christ" and paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi and Brueghel holding the Neapolitan and Flemish walls. The second floor follows the arts in Naples from the 1200s to the Settecento, ending in the royal porcelain factory's triumph: the Salottino di Porcellana, Queen Maria Amalia's porcelain boudoir of 1757-1759, made when the royal manufactory still worked inside the park. The museum's contemporary thread runs to Andy Warhol, whose Vesuvius belongs to the collection's modern chapter. Sections such as the Armeria and the De Ciccio collection open and close with restoration campaigns, so treat the floor plan as seasonal.

Context and history

Charles had conquered the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in 1734 and wanted a residence that declared the kingdom's independence from Spain. The hunting reserve on the Capodimonte hill became a palace whose construction was inaugurated on 10 September 1738; the wood's avenues are credited to the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice. From 1735 the Farnese collections travelled to Naples, and by 1758 twelve of the planned twenty-four rooms of the piano nobile held the library, the medals, the picture gallery and the antiquities. The Bourbons were followed by the French kings of Naples and then the Savoys; after unification the palace became a gallery of modern art, and in 1957 it reopened as the Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte with the medieval and modern collections transferred from the National Archaeological Museum. The park, planted with camphors, camellias and magnolias by court botanists, keeps 16 historic buildings across its 134 hectares and more than 400 plant species; the museum's own history records it being voted Italy's most beautiful park in 2014.