Caserta Palace

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The view down the cascade towards the Palace of Caserta.

The Caserta Palace, in Italian Reggia di Caserta, is a palace and former Royal residence in Caserta, near Naples, once used by the Kings of Naples. It was the largest palace and probably the largest building erected in Europe in the 18th century. In 1996, the Palace of Caserta was listed among the World Heritage Sites on the ground that it was "the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space".[1] The Kingdom of Naples was neither powerful nor prosperous when Caserta was built, and it was less flatteringly described by the historian Edward Crankshaw as "a colossal monument to minuscule glory."

1 History
2 Overview
3 The park
4 External links
5 Reference

[edit] History

The construction of the palace was begun in 1752 for Charles VII of Naples, who worked closely with his architect Luigi Vanvitelli. When King Charles saw Vanvitelli's grandly-scaled model for Caserta it filled him with emotion "fit to tear his heart from his breast". In the end, he never slept a night at the Reggia, as he resigned from the throne in 1759 to become King of Spain, and the project was carried to completion for his third son and successor Ferdinand IV of Naples.

The models for Vanvitelli's palace are supposed to have been Versailles, Charlottenburg, and the Royal Palace in Madrid, devised by Filippo Juvarra for Charles' father, Felipe V of Spain. A spacious octagonal vestibule seems to have been inspired by Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, while the palatine chapel references the works of Jules Hardouin Mansart.[2]

Vanvitelli died in 1773: the construction was continued by his son Carlo, until it was ended in 1780.

As finished, the palace has some 1,200 rooms, two dozen state apartments, and a royal theatre modelled after the Teatro San Carlo of Naples.

The population of Caserta Vecchia was shifted 10 kilometers to make it available to the new palace. A silk manufactory at San Leucio was disguised as a pavilion in the immense parkland.

A monumental avenue, 20 kilometers in length, which would have connected the Palace to Naples, was never realized.

[edit] Overview

The palace has a rectangular plan, measuring 247 x 184 m. The four sides are connected by two orthogonal arms, forming four inner courts, each measuring more than 3,800 m².

Behind the facades of its matching segmental ranges of outbuildings that flank the giant forecourt, a jumble of buildings arose to facilitate daily business. In the left hand arc was built as barracks. Here, later, during World War II the soldiers of the US Fifth Army recovered in a "rest centre".

Of all the royal residences inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the Reggia of Caserta is the one bearing the greatest resemblance to the original model: the unbroken balustraded skyline, the slight break provided by pavilions within the long, somewhat monotonous facade. As at Versailles, a large aqueduct was required to bring water for the prodigious water displays. Like its French predecessor, the palace was designed to be the powerhouse of an absolute Bourbon monarchy in the true Baroque fashion. Thus the enfilades of Late Baroque were the heart and seat of government, as well as displays of national wealth. The palace also provided suitable housing for the royal family and the court of the Kingdom of Naples, the Palace housed the offices of government bureaucracy a national library, a university, a national theatre, all apart and free from the disorder and squalor of Naples. Thus the King of Naples at Caserta was free from the mob and factions of his capital in the same way as Versailles had freed Louis XIV from Paris. Besides its size and grandeur, it also had the advantage of being inland, and hence more densible, than the old Royal Palace in Naples, which fronted the Bay of Naples and hence was vunerable to attack from the sea. To provide the King with extra protection a barracks was also housed within the precincts of the palace.

The wide central entrance carriageway has, today, been incorporated into the city's automobile circulation.

A view of the park.

[edit] The park

The gardens, a typical example of geometrical Italian style, stretch for 120 ha, partly on a hilly terrain. It is inspired to the park of Versailles, but it is commonly regarded as superior in beauty. The park starts from the back facade of the palace, flanking a long alley with artificial fountains and cascades.

The fountains and cascades, each filling a vasca ("basin"), with architecture and hydraulics by Luigi Vanvitelli at intervals along a wide straight canal that runs to the horizon, rivalled those at Peterhof outside St. Petersburg. These include:

the Fountain of Diana and Actaeon (sculptures by Paolo Persico, Brunelli, Pietro Solari);
The Fountain of Venus and Adonis (1770-80);
The Fountain of the Dolphins (1773-80);
the Fountain of Aeolus;
the Fountain of Ceres.

A large population of figures from classical Antiquity were modelled by Gaetano Salomone for the gardens of the Reggia, and excuted by large workshops. In the 1780s, an early Continental example of an "English garden" in the svelte naturalistic taste of Capability Brown was added, designed by Giovanni Antonio Graefer.