Palace of Caserta

History

The construction of the palace began in 1752 for Charles VII of Naples (later Charles III of Spain), who worked closely with his architect, Luigi Vanvitelli. In the end, Charles never slept a night at the Reggia, as he abdicated in 1759 to become King of Spain. The project was carried to only partial completion for Charles' third son and successor, Ferdinand IV of Naples.

The political and social model for Vanvitelli's palace was Versailles, which, though very different in its variety and disposition, solved similar problems of assembling and providing for the king, court, and government in a large building with the social structure of a small city, confronting a baroque view of a highly subordinated nature, la nature forcée. This was part of the entire concept of the palace when Mario Gioffredo first proposed it in 1750. According to George L. Hersey, the proposal envisaged a palace "that was a virtual city, housing not just the court and king but all the main political and cultural elites of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily - university, museum, library, cabinet bureaus, military high commands, and so on." The population of Caserta Vecchia was moved 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to provide a workforce closer to the palace. A silk factory at San Leucio was disguised as a pavilion in the parkland. Another of the king's primary objectives was to have a new royal court and administrative center for the kingdom in a location protected from sea attack and distant from the revolt-prone and congested city of Naples. Troop barracks were housed within the palace to provide the king with suitable protection.

Vanvitelli died in 1773 and the construction was continued by his son Carlo and then by other architects; but the elder Vanvitelli's original project, which included a pair of frontal wings similar to Bernini's colonnades at St. Peter's Square, was never finished. In 1861, with the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, Savoyard officials surveyed the contents of the Palace. The bidet was inventoried as follows: "strange object in the shape of a guitar". …

Layout of the palace

The palace has five floors; 1,200 rooms, including two dozen state apartments; 1,742 windows; 34 staircases; 1,026 fireplaces; a large library; and a theatre modelled after the Teatro San Carlo of Naples. The Palatine Chapel was designed by Luigi Vanvitelli on the model of the chapel at Versailles, although he criticized the French model and departed from it by placing the chapel inside the Royal Palace, with direct access from the Upper Vestibule.

An avenue running 20 kilometres between the palace and Naples was planned but never realized.

The palace has a rectangular plan, measuring 247 m × 190 m (810 ft × 623 ft), and the four sides are connected by two orthogonal arms, forming four inner courts.

Caserta has a volume of around 2 million cubic metres (70 million cubic feet). The floor space is 130,000 square metres. Behind the façades of its matching segmental ranges of outbuildings that flank the giant forecourt, a jumble of buildings arose to facilitate daily business. The palace encloses four courts that feature what scholars describe as a well-proportioned interior.

Like its French predecessor, the palace was intended to display the power and grandeur of an absolute Bourbon monarchy. The enfilades of Late Baroque saloni were the heart and seat of government, as well as displays of national wealth. Caserta provided a royal refuge from the dust and factions of the capital, just as Versailles had freed Louis XIV from Paris.

The park

The garden, a typical example of the Baroque extension of formal vistas, stretches for 120 hectares (300 acres), partly on hilly terrain. Its construction started in 1753, and it is also inspired by the park of Versailles. The park starts from the back façade of the palace, flanking a long alley with artificial fountains and cascades. There is a botanical garden called "The English Garden" in the upper part designed in the 1780s by Carlo Vanvitelli and the German-born botanist, nurseryman, and plantsman-designer, John Graefer, who was trained in London and recommended to Sir William Hamilton by Sir Joseph Banks. It is an early Continental example of an English garden in the svelte naturalistic taste of Capability Brown.

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. These include:

The Fountain of Diana and Actaeon (sculptures by Paolo Persico, Angelo Maria Brunelli, and Tommaso Solari);

Many figures from classical Antiquity were modelled by Gaetano Salomone for the gardens of the Reggia and were executed by large workshops.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

The palace was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. According to the rationale, the palace, "whilst cast in the same mould as other 18th-century royal establishments, is exceptional for the broad sweep of its design, incorporating not only an imposing palace and park but also much of the surrounding natural landscape and an ambitious new town laid out according to the urban planning precepts of its time."