The long grey-and-red façade on Piazza del Plebiscito presents Naples’ history as a line of rulers. Eight statues, commissioned under the House of Savoy, stand in niches that Luigi Vanvitelli created during eighteenth-century consolidation work; they run from Roger the Norman to Victor Emmanuel II. The building itself began in 1600, when viceroy Fernando Ruiz de Castro and vicereine Catarina Zuñiga y Sandoval commissioned Domenico Fontana to create a residence for Philip III of Spain. Its position beside the gardens of Castel Nuovo continued the royal quarter at the edge of the old city.
Inside, the square Courtyard of Honour preserves Fontana’s two-level loggia, with five piperno arches on each side. Look above the arch towards the Staircase of Honour for the Golden Fleece. The marble staircase retains Francesco Antonio Picchiatti’s mid-seventeenth-century design, modelled on Toledo’s Alcázar, beneath the later neoclassical decoration introduced after the 1837 fire. In the State Apartment, the Court Theatre tells a different story: Ferdinando Fuga converted the former Gran Sala for the 1768 wedding of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina. Its twelve papier-mâché figures include Apollo, the nine Muses, Minerva and Mercury. Bombing during the Second World War damaged the roof and destroyed the vault’s eighteenth-century decoration, which was later repainted in its original style. The central scene, the Wedding of Poseidon and Amphitrite, is based on Antonio Dominici’s original 1768 painting.
The palace now brings together the museum, the National Library of Naples and the neighbouring Teatro di San Carlo. Start with the Museum of the Factory for architectural models and the story of the building’s transformations, then allow about an hour for the State Apartment, with extra time for the Caruso Museum or Hanging Garden. The garden has its own ticket supplement and guided arrangements; check the official visitor information before choosing your route.
A Habsburg viceregal foundation later expanded as a Bourbon royal residence; a state cultural institution since 1919.
