Royal Palace of Caserta
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Royal Palace of Caserta | |
---|---|
Reggia di Caserta | |
Alternative names | Palazzo Reale di Caserta |
General information | |
Type | Palace |
Architectural style | Late Baroque and early Neoclassical |
Location | Caserta, Italy |
Address | Viale Douhet, 81100 Caserta CE, Italy |
Construction started | 1752 |
Technical details | |
Size | 247 × 184 × 36 meters (42 meters including the roof) |
Floor area | c. 138,000 square metres (1,490,000 sq ft)[1] |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 1,200 |
Website | |
reggiadicaserta | |
Part of | 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex |
Criteria | Cultural: (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) |
Reference | 549rev |
Inscription | 1997 (21st Session) |
Area | 87.37 ha (0.3373 sq mi) |
Buffer zone | 110.76 ha (0.4276 sq mi) |
Coordinates | 41°4′24″N 14°19′35″E / 41.07333°N 14.32639°E |
The Royal Palace of Caserta (Italian: Reggia di Caserta, Italian: [ˈrɛddʒa di kaˈzɛrta]) is a former royal residence in Caserta, Campania, 35km north of Naples in southern Italy, constructed by the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as their main residence as kings of Naples. Located 35 km north of the historic center of Naples, Italy, the complex is the largest palace erected in Europe during the 18th century.[2] In 1997, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site;[3] its nomination described it as "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".[2] The Royal Palace of Caserta is the largest former royal residence in the world,[2][4] over 2 million m3 in volume[5] and covering an area of 47,000 m2[6] and a floorspace of 138,000 square meters is distributed in the five stories of the building.[7]
History
The construction of the palace began in 1752
The political and social model for Vanvitelli's palace was Versailles, which, though strikingly different in its variety and disposition, solved similar problems of assembling and providing for the king, court, and government in a massive building with the social structure of a small city, confronting a baroque view of a highly subordinated nature, la nature forcée.[10] 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."[11]
Noted British art historian, Anthony Blunt, said the palace "became the symbol of the new monarchy, and Vanvitelli's bold design brilliantly expresses this idea. The vastness of the scale. the vistas through open vestibules to the park, and the dramatically planned grand staircase are all evidence that Charles aimed at rivalling Versailles; but not a single element is directly borrowed from Louis XIV's palace, and Caserta has the great advantage over its model of having been planned as a whole by a single architect at a single moment, as opposed to the sometimes untidy agglomeration of elements which makes Versailles more picturesque but less harmonious."[8]
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 immense parkland.
Another of the king's primary objectives was to have a magnificent 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.
The
From 1923 to 1943, the palace was the location of the
In 1998, the palace was a filming location for
The Royal Palace of Caserta has also been the site of other notable movies, such as The Great, Mission: Impossible III, Angels & Demons, Ferdinando and Carolina, among others.[17]
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
The palace has a rectangular plan, measuring 247 × 184 m, and the four sides are connected by two
Even without the surface area of the internal courtyards, Caserta is by far the
Of all the royal residences inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the Reggia of Caserta is the one that bears the greatest resemblance to the original model: the unbroken balustraded skyline and the slight break provided by pavilions within the long, somewhat monotonous façade. As at Versailles, a large aqueduct was required to bring water for the prodigious water displays. Like its French predecessor, the palace was intended to display the power and grandeur of an absolute Bourbon monarchy.[8] A solecism at Caserta is that above the piano reale, the King's floor, is another floor of equal magnificence. 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 royal palace has more than 40 monumental rooms completely decorated with frescoes when, in comparison, Versailles counts only 22 monumental rooms.[23]
The park
The garden, a typical example of the Baroque extension of formal vistas, stretches for 120 hectares, partly on hilly terrain.
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
- The Fountain of Diana and Actaeon (sculptures by Paolo Persico, Angelo Maria Brunelli, and Tommaso Solari);
- The Fountain of Venus and Adonis (1770–80);
- The Fountain of the Dolphins (1773–80);
- The Fountain of Aeolus;
- The Fountain of Ceres.
Many figures from classical Antiquity were modelled by Gaetano Salomone for the gardens of the Reggia and were executed by large workshops.
Contemporary observers noted that the Caserta surpassed all other European royal palaces, including its models, in one particular aspect: the combination of completeness and stateliness.[26] This is attributed to the spacious oval piazza in front of the edifice's south side.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
The palace was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.[27] 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."[3]
See also
- Asteroid 274246 Reggiacaserta
- List of Baroque residences
References
- ^ Source of datas: "La reggia della Meraviglia", curated by Ottavio Ragone, Conchita Sannino e Antonio Ferrara, Guida Editori, 2022, pag. 19: "una superficie di 138 mila mq nei cinque piani fuori terra e 45.000 mq nei due interrati".
- ^ a b c d Chronopoulou, Angeliki (January 23, 2024). "Reggia Di Caserta Historical Overview". Academia. Retrieved January 23, 2024.
- ^ a b "18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex". UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
- ISBN 9782259222679– via Google Books.
- ^ "Royal Palace of Caserta guide, page 6, box: "I numeri della Reggia di Caserta"". January 13, 2013.
- ^ "CampaniaBeniCulturali - Reggia di Caserta". March 29, 2012. Archived from the original on 2014-10-19.
- ^ Source of datas: "La reggia della Meraviglia", curated by Ottavio Ragone, Conchita Sannino e Antonio Ferrara, Guida Editori, 2022, pag. 19: "una superficie di 138 mila mq nei cinque piani fuori terra e 45.000 mq nei due interrati".
- ^ a b c d Blunt, Anthony (April 1979). "Naples under The Bourbons". JSTOR. 208.
- ^ Wilson, Katherine (April 19, 2016). Only in Naples (1st ed.). Random House. p. 127.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - Siegfried Giedion(1941) Space, Time and Architecture pp 133ff.
- ISBN 0226327841.
- ^ "Luigi Vanvitelli, The Architect of The Royal Palace of Caserta". Reggia Di Caserta Unofficial. 2014. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
- ^ Erminio De Biase, England against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: live and let die , 2002, p. 159.
- ^ Anthony Cave Brown (1984). The last hero: Wild Bill Donovan. Vintage Books.
- ^ "The Sad Story of The Furnishings of The Palace of Caserta". Reggia Di Caserta Unofficial. February 6, 2024.
- ^ "Star Wars movie locations". Visit World Heritage. February 6, 2024.
- ^ "Reggia in the Movies". Reggia Di Caserta. February 6, 2024.
- ISBN 978-1908206947.
- ^ "Capua & Caserta Day Tour". February 6, 2024.
- )
- ^ Source of datas: "La reggia della Meraviglia", curated by Ottavio Ragone, Conchita Sannino e Antonio Ferrara, Guida Editori, 2022, pag. 19: "una superficie di 138 mila mq nei cinque piani fuori terra e 45.000 mq nei due interrati".
- ISBN 0819628735.
- ^ Sullivan, Kimberly (August 15, 2017). "Bigger than Versailles – the Royal palace at Caserta". Kimberly Sullivan Author. Retrieved February 6, 2024.
- ^ a b c "Caserta Royal Palace and Parkes, Italy". Visit World Heritage. February 6, 2024.
- ^ Alice M. Coats, "Forgotten Gardeners, II: John Graefer" The Garden History Society Newsletter No. 16 (February 1972), pp. 4–7.
- ^ Laxton, William (1848). The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, Volume 11. London: R. Groombridge and Sons. p. 36.
- ^ "18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex". UNESCO World Heritage Convention. February 6, 2024.
Further reading
- Attlee, Helena (2006). Italian Gardens - A Cultural History (paperback). London: Frances Lincoln. pp. 240 pages. ISBN 978-0-7112-3392-8.
- Hersey, George. Architecture, Poetry, and Number in the Royal Palace at Caserta, (Cambridge: MIT Press) 1983. Caserta interpreted through the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico
External links
- Official website
- The reference website about the Palace of Caserta (hours, history, halls, park, the attractions in the Province, etc.) - Italian/English language
- In-depth site on the Royal Palace of Caserta in English, Spanish and Italian